The Half Killed
by Elizabeth Cicero
Summary: When murder and tragedy strike those closest to Eloise, and when her heart is torn between the kind Inspector Abberline and the subject of her innermost desires, a man known simply as John - who will she choose to save her from death's biting doorstep?
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters referenced from the films From Hell or The Libertine, nor do I represent either historical figure, Frederick Abberline or John Wilmot. I write merely for myself and those readers who take an interest. Thank you. - E.

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* * *

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PROLOGUE:

Oxfordshire, July 1680

* * *

He was supposed to have died.

He felt himself die, and he was certain of no less. He had been so readied for it. And yet, the world seemed to slowly reawaken to his senses, all of which were burning with a ravenous ache, a thirst unlike that which he'd ever welcomed for the spoils of drink or the plumpness of women. This was a jolting spasm of pain that shot down the curve of his neck, through his sides, and along the course of his arching, revolutionary spine. His fingers curled, shutting into an angry fist. He bit into his lip, which was unusually cold, even for death.

Even for lifelessness that seemed all too irrelevant.

John supposed he could have screamed for help in the darkness. He imagined he could have thrust himself from wherever it was he seemed to be, whatever frigid and empty and echoing place housed him now. He pictured himself pounding on the wooden boards of an unintentional casket, punching a hole through with his fists, and finding an avenue enough to slither his way from the grave sight, out of the hole he knew he must be in, and back to England's grey-sky again. He could have, of course, in his painless dreams.

If they had only been but such.

* * *

**Paris, March 1889**

* * *

Toe out, chin up, back arched properly. No more enhanced, no less.

The satin ribbons of her shoes, the boned chemise, the waves of crinoline and lace upon her skirt, all amount to who she is, what she will become this year. With an orchestra she transforms into another being entirely, a creature of form, artifice, elegant canter. Her heels never meet gravity. She only floats on toes, on air, on her fragile weight.

_Le Exposition Universelle_ is what everyone is talking about, a spectacle of art, of renaissance, of passion for progression. Ballet will be heavily noted upon this event, and Ella, will take that lead.

She keeps her mark across the bar, balancing from plank to plank, fluttering at the mirrored wall, her reflection taken under scrutiny all the more by her eye. So she struggles more, pushes herself further, wider, harder and faster than ever before, until her calves grow weak with disillusionment and her arms flail with lack of nourishment. Every spin, every flex brings her closer to perfection for the increasing number of silhouettes beyond her. An audience grows of both students and instructors, all of those who have brought her this far, this quickly.

Two years ago she was starving on the streets of London, and now, she was the princess of the Parisian Ballet. So she dances, until there is nothing left of her but the droplets of sweat across her brow and between her delicate breasts.

When the scratchy music eventually comes to a stop, so does she, ever so gracefully near the window of the large room. Her eyes open and from where she stands, amidst the clapping and cheering, she can see the iron giant, the one they call the _Eiffel_. They've been building it continuously for months, years, and its assembly is set to be shared with the world in less than three weeks. It is a sign of hope—for the city, for independence, for Eloise Rousseau and her tantalizing ways, for everything she's worked so hard for.

There is very little now that can stop her from accomplishing her goal and ruling the world around her.

* * *

**London, October 1889

* * *

**

A cloud of smoke wafts across the desk of a man with very little coming into his life, and even more leaving it. He should have died a year ago with the drugs, the loss of another beautiful woman. It should have been enough to finally relieve him of breath.

Instead he remains, scanning over scribbled accounts of a case that took place while he was lost inside of his office, exhausted, beaten to death by the drugs that still hold all function over his fragile body. The monster caresses his heart day in and out, with very little need of anything substantial, anything subjective to his life. Godley, his dear friend, is his final line to reality, as well as his continuous guardian, protector of his job, his livelihood.

Abberline rises with his cigarette, dragging it loosely between his lips as he nears the high window of the second floor building. It is early morning to him, merely by the color of the skies, the touch of dew against the glass panes, the quieting sounds below on the Chapel is alive in the middle of the night, and then dead until the sun falls again, the way it always has and probably always will be. Most of what occurs here—his occupation even—is based on the nightly happenings of degenerative London; the brutes, the whores, and the murderers all alike in their sauntering ways, their raunchy tones throughout the dark air.

By now his child should have been six, a good age, a worthy time for him to have spent with Victoria, who herself would have been thirty-one and still just as beautiful as the day he met her. But it was only him, thirty-five years gone by, and he was left stale and alone in the smoke filled office. There was no interest in the cases piling up on his desk, and even less interest in taking another breath.

Godley would be arriving within minutes, and only then could he bring himself to actually work, to feed on the morning discoveries of flesh and bone, and to set into justice that which never once worked for him. Frederick had nothing to live for, but he did so for the sole discretion of his visions. They continued to plague him into believing there was something left for him to find, something for him,_ somewhere_...


	2. Healing

**February 18, 1890– Adler Street, London**

* * *

"One more time round the floor, Ella. You can do this."

She couldn't. She knew she couldn't twelve leaps ago. With a heavy breath, a wipe of the moisture from her upper lip and forehead, she stepped back from the bar that was balancing her in ways she'd never dreamed it would have to. Her fingers tingled with numbness and a distance from her mind and body. She followed the toe of her shoe, watching as it dragged against the wood floor, noticing also how the rain on the blackened window panes of the studio matched her senseless spirit. It would only be one more round across the floor, the room, until she could quit on the seizing pain in her knee and go home.

Once more—

"Up," she heard Cecelia, her instructor, shout. "Up gracefully, child. And now across. Yes."

The orders weren't new to her, only the sound of them were. The tone implied that her pace and her rate of movement would always be lagging in some respect, that Ella would never again be able to do what she once had. That's what hurt the most.

But she worked at it nonetheless, certain that if she could only but find the proper strength again, the right attitude and mood, that she could heal the fracture, mend the muscles enough to go back to Paris. To go back to the lights and the sounds of glory.

She danced faster, spun more harshly and watched her reflection more intently as her legs shifted back and forth between boards on the floor, matching the sound of the scratchy music and the tap of her instructor's cane. She counted the beats, counted the seconds as though they were clouds in the sky or petals on a flower. And then, when she couldn't go the extra distance with her movement, Ella let herself tumble down and she crashed wearily on the wood floor.

"Ella!" She heard Cecelia yell at her. "No, no. You'll never dance for the ballet again with such a feeble manner in you."

"I—can't."

Ella breathed heavily, unable to move from the crumpled mess she was on the floor, with her legs twisted and her skirt bunched in tire.

"I can't go any further tonight, Cee. I'm sorry."

"_Sorry_, but of course you are," Cecelia scoffed as she collected her cloth and tossed it to Ella on the floor. Then she turned away for the door, her voice echoing as she went. "We'll finish this up tomorrow, Eloise. Clean yourself and meet me downstairs."

She knew she'd wasted more of her instructor's time. Cecelia wished to help Ella better herself and return to the pinnacle she'd once been so renowned for. But it wasn't happening as either of them had hoped, and it was becoming more and more apparent that it may never return again. So she wiped herself from the floor and changed from her bustle and leotard. She washed the sweat from her chest and face, stared at herself longingly in the mirror some more, and was only drawn from the pain in her eyes, when she heard the crash of glass from below her on the first floor.

Her heart beat wildly as she stepped away from the bar and towards the door of the room. She listened to the sound of pounding, of struggle, and then a scream. Ella ran barefoot down the old stairwell in the light of only a few low burning kerosene lanterns, searching out movement and seeing none.

"Cecelia?"

There was no response as she ran to the first floor of the studio, down the hall towards the front door where she saw a motionless form on the rug. Her heart beat anxiously as she looked around in the hazy darkness. There was a broken window at the front, sprinkled glass across the foyer and a trail of blood from Cecelia's body to nearly her toes. Tears welled in her eyes as she stood unmoving against the wall of the staircase, breathing loosely. She waited as the silence prevailed and then she down on the floor beside the woman.

"Cee, please!" Ella begged, stroking her friend's bloodied cheeks. "You'll be alright."


	3. Acquaintance

**2 a.m.

* * *

**

A crowd of a hundred or more circled the front of the building in the rain as their carriage pulled between bodies at a halt. Frederick's head hung low and tired in his hands while he attempted to appease the distress of his mind, the pain and the hallucinogenic inebriation. His dear friend Godley had pulled him loose from the claws of death again, as always he felt certain he would. And when the large man's shoe thrust open the door of the carriage, Fred's eyes wavered with the loud scene outside as he stumbled down to the wet cobblestone walkway.

"Step aside! Move out o' the way." Godley shoved men from their path, eyes blinking furiously to see through the rain as he looked back at Frederick. The door of the dance studio was open, and as they stepped inside there was a fizzling flash of a camera bulb that awoke them both.

"Sergeant Godley. Inspector Abberline. Over here, sirs."

They walked around the mangled body of a victim, the pool of blood on the wood floor and rug, and headed towards the front desk of the ballet house. A huddle of detectives and watchmen made whispered attempts at solving the case, the one that would no doubt put Frederick to a new test within the hour. He looked around as they murmured details and findings, doing what he did best, in simply observing.

The front window was shattered, as was previously mentioned. The handle of the door busted clear from the wood, and the lamp at the corner of the desk destroyed in what they assumed was an effort of self defense. He moved his face around the foyer further, down the hall, where he saw a pair of bare feet hiding from about the corner of the staircase. His brow tightened when he saw a man hunched over, whispering to the hidden person in a gentle manner.

"Who's the girl?" he finally asked the crowd of men.

To which one firmly replied, "She's a dancer, Inspector. Was ere' when it all happened."

"She's a witness then?"

"Well actually-" the younger officer was cut from his explanation as Abberline moved towards the stairs. He touched the back of the man bending to the second victim's voice, and realized it was Constable Dodson when he looked up.

"Inspector."

"James. Don't mind if I go on with the questions ere', do you?"

The young man gulped, peered down at the girl of his interests again, and then to Fred.

"Of course not, sir."

"Good."

He stepped away and Fredrick moved in to sit a few steps below where the meek looking girl did. She wore a trench coat that he quickly took to be Dodson's, and held her hand to her nose, trying to clear away the wetness of tears and otherwise. Without saying a word, he pulled his handkerchief from his coat pocket and handed it up to her. She wiped her face clean and breathed deep. He turned to hear her say, "Thank you," as quietly as possible.

He nodded. "You're welcome, Miss...?"

"Rousseau."

"Miss Rousseau. I'm Chief Inspector Abberline, o' the White Chapel municipality." Ella felt sure she saw a tiny smirk at the corner of his mouth when his dark brown eyes turned up. "You're a dancer here, yes?"

"I was a dancer. In Paris." She wiped her nose again out of regret. "Cecelia was a friend of my mother's when I was younger. She was helping me to regain my strength."

"Regain your strength?"

She nodded solemnly and turned her face toward the crowd of law enforcement gentleman watching their conversation.

"I had an accident in France last year. I was training to return."

"I see."

Frederick sighed understandably and then caught a glimpse of her boots sitting at the foot of the stairwell, waiting for her bare feet to fill them.

"Where were you when-?"

"I was upstairs, Inspector. I was changing clothes." Her interruption caught him off guard, her defensive mood, her hopeless sort of assurance. "I heard a crash and came down. But it was too late."

His lips pursed thoughtfully as he watched the sadness fill her sparkling green eyes. Her dark hair half covered her face with loose twists and curls and knots of distress. But the girl was beautiful, she was in fact, as handsome a creature as he'd ever seen in this wretched part of town before, and then far beyond to all of England. And she herself was not so wretched. In fact something about her seemed out of place, as if she could be in a better part of London and yet chose to reside here. It was odd to him, but he took it with a grain of fortitude.

"Did you see anyone when you came downstairs?"

Ella shook her head without words.

"Cecelia Madsen was already on th' floor then, she was already-?"

"Yes."

Fredrick bit his tongue from the way she continued to cut his questions, the way she continued to pretend as though everything would just go away. He could see that's all she wanted.

"I don't know who would do such a thing to her. Cee would never hurt anyone at all. It's so senseless."

And so it was and he knew that. There was a woman dead on the floor, being covered by a white sheet in a pool of her own blood, with bruises and one deep slash across her midsection. The only sign of struggle was a broken lamp. And the one eye witness to the situation was a young girl too afraid to speak beyond the truth of what she_ didn't_ see. He was at a loss, as usual.

"I'm sorry I can't help your investigation more, Inspector."

He stared longingly at her as she wiped her eyes. Then Abberline reached down and lifted her small boots from the floor. He sat before her, two steps down, and gently eased a stocking upon each of her dirtied feet and then boots to match. Ella watched him. She was surprised by the gesture, one that no man before him had given her without wishing for something in return. He appeared to be a lost sort of soul, with vacant eyes and uncertainty quivering in his voice. But he was honest and that was what she appreciated most.

"All the same, I plan to do everything I can to find out what's happened here, to your friend. An' if there's anything you think o', or anything that you need, you're more than welcome t' come to me."

Ella nodded with a gracious smile and handed him back his handkerchief, apologizing for the mess she'd made of it. He grinned the same and tied her second boot with a pat to leather.

"Thank you, Mr. Abberline."

"No. Thank you, Miss Rousseau."

"Ella," she stopped him as he rose from the steps and helped her down. He was captured by her sweet tone and the way she stared up at him. "My name is Ella."

"Frederick," he replied kindly, walking her back out safely among the crowds for a carriage.


	4. Mystery

**February 23 – Grosvenor Square, Hyde Park**

* * *

"So, he leaps from the steed, looks my way and says, 'Sir, you appear to be rather _green_—'"

There was uproarious laughter and clanking of glassware that Ella pretended to be a part of. She smiled and caught the attention of the lead storyteller, Mr. Charles Hennessey, when he looked her way. She made herself presentable, capable of marriage, and more than appealing as a wife, a lover, and a caretaker. Ella did what she felt she had to now, and in the midst of it all, never realized the attention she made for herself elsewhere.

"Miss Rousseau, a dance perhaps?"

The formal group turned to stare at her in the middle of the dinner party, as Charles rose from his seat and came around to lead her towards the ballroom instead. There were whispers of jealousy and ill expectance everywhere surrounding them. She held onto his arm as he twirled her into the center of the floor, his hands placed protectively and with claim upon her. He smelled wonderfully, dressed well and had every air about him that was to be cherished with the territory and the society of London. He was what every woman in the room dreamed of being attached to, and for this alone, she smiled as though she wanted it too.

They danced and he spoke to her in fluttering whispers. "You are quite easily the most delightful creature to have ever stepped upon our shores, Eloise."

"Oh. How you do flatter, Mr. Hennessey."

"I am perfectly serious. France has lost a great wonder of beauty, if I may be so forward."

She giggled out of respect and clung to him carefully as he spun her around in the midst of crowds and starting rumors. Only one thing in particular struck her in all of the movement and color and flirtatious words, and that was the face of another man entirely, a brooding man in a dark corner of the room who seemed to have no real intention of being a guest at all. The second her eyes were locked onto his, Charles had spun her away again.

"I've no more reason to search out fate with you here, Ella."

She heard him clearly enough, but was too concentrated on finding the eyes of the man in the crowd as she moved around in a daze.

"I do believe, and quite firmly, that you are what I've been after. You're what I've been looking for all this time."

"Charles," she gulped, being granted one small peek from over his shoulder at the man as he stepped through the audience of bodies. He stared back at her with an animalistic glow. "You hardly know me at all, save for my name in the papers."

"And yet I feel I've known you the whole of my life."

No response came. She was too intently focused on glimpses of the tall man, his cropped, dark locks weaving in and out of the space of the great ballroom, and his black eyes catching hers adrift in thin air every time. Ella felt her knees growing weak from it. She felt her heart beating against her chest in pain, in fear of eventually never seeing him again.

"I would love for nothing more than to spend the season showing you the fondness I hold for you, Eloise. I wish for all of London to know in fact, just how I cherish your being here."

"That's very kind of you, Charles." She smiled sweetly as the orchestrated music faded away and a rise of applause concluded their dancing. Ella pulled back and clapped her hands the same, her eyes shifting around the intensity of the guests' faces, looking for only one, one that never appeared to her. Instead, she found Charles' again. "I believe I've underestimated the strength of my knee, as always."

He smiled understandably and began to lead her from the floor.

"Let us get some fresh air. A stroll to the balcony perhaps?"

"No," she stopped him with a kind eye. "I'd rather collect myself alone for a moment. If you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind. Come and find me when you're feeling refreshed, won't you?"

Ella nodded and Charles kissed her hand with nothing but ardor in his eyes. When he had returned to entertainment among friends again, she turned for the balcony of the grand floor.

Outside, under the hazy clouds and foggy London sky, she stood against the railing, looking out over the glorious park as it sparkled from a late rainstorm. She was lost in the peacefulness of this part of the city, the part that could afford peace. It was nothing like the end in which she had chosen to reside with Cecelia during her healing process. It was in all manner of speaking, the better side of the city, the clean side, and the side that had welcomed her as easily as Paris' society had. Her dancing and even her injury at the sport had given her leverage in a crowd of men and women who would have turned their noses up at her if they knew just where she had come from, if they ever knew which side of London had truly birthed her.

Lost in the thought, Ella breathed tiredly and readied herself to move back inside. But before she could turn for the doors again, she felt a hand touch hers on the cool iron railing, as the body of a man pressed against her back tenderly. She stiffened at the touch, fearful of the possibilities, concerned with the lack of propriety in the position, and above all else, undone by the musky scent of the man and the dripping sensuality in his voice when he whispered on her neck.

"You are an eager tease with your _eyes_, Miss Rousseau. Do tell where you learned such a bewildering trick."

Ella took a deep breath, shivering against the man when she felt his mouth press as lightly as possible to her ear, then the open curve of her shoulder. "Um, Sir?" her attempt was a mute one when she felt his cool lips suckle at her neck, nearly biting into her skin as his fingers tangled in hers on the railing tightly.

"You're frightened by me."

"Surprised is all," she managed to get out as she spun around in his arms, avoiding the continuance of his touch. "I don't know you so well as to allow this manner of—"

"Of what? Desire?"

She only stared up at him, lost in the midst of the dangerous black lust.

"Is there so unrighteous a law here in this city now, so as to denounce the power of craving, of _yearning_—of covet for another?"

His breath on her lips was risky but seducing no less.

"I would not know, Sir."

"Please," he whispered as his mouth very nearly touched hers. "John."

"I see. And what then of propriety's sake? Am I honestly to know you as _John_ alone?"

He smirked devilishly. "What else do you need to know for a continuance of what we've begun, darling?"

"_Continuance_…? You are hasty indeed, sir."

Ella settled against the railing comfortably, still nervous under his gaze as she felt the chilled London air hit the silk drapery of her exposed back.

"I only make haste when I feel it necessary, madam. And believe me, _you_ are a necessity."

"Figuring how?"

"By the look in which your dance company has granted you all evening."

Ella's gaze moved from the eyes of the man above her, to the smiling, unknowing face of Charles behind the glass balcony doors. Then just as quickly, she returned to the dark eyed man again.

"If such a thing were possible, you'd be his wife by night's end."

"And you know so well the intentions of others do you, _John_?"

The wicked smirk returned with her teasing tone. "I do."

"I suppose then, you are fully aware of what my answer to your advances will be."

"I have an idea."

"Can I know it?"

He leaned against her more roughly, the hardened strain of confidence touching the thigh of her dress as his body and arms consumed her every thought. With a simple whisper of a kiss on her neck, her eyes fluttered closed to the stars as she heard him speak, "You already do, Ella."

Then just like that, without warning or a sign or a promise of any kind, the man's body was gone from hers, curling away on what felt like nothing more than a gust of nightly air. He disappeared from sight and sound and touch all at once, and Charles' voice calling her back to reality—back to the party and his hand and his own advances—was all she knew.


	5. Dinner Witness

**February 24 – Berkeley Square **

* * *

Between her and destiny, were roses and candles and food to feed the mass of starving children in the streets of Bishopsgate. Ella stared at the table, at the things she could have never hoped for of the evening previously promised to her. At the other end of the beautifully set menagerie, was the face of a man who had begun offering her the world weeks before, upon her first arrival to London. He was a man of inherited government business, who fluttered on the coattails of her celebrity and constantly made an effort to trade a title of Madame with her current status as Miss.

She was headstrong against it, silently.

"Is the duck prepared to your liking, Eloise?"

She looked up from her plate with a nod and a forced bite of the meat.

"Good. I had them make it especially for your visit this evening."

Ella smiled and took a sip of wine. "Don't you have other friends to visit you this evening as well? You seemed so very popular last night."

Charles laughed loudly. "Oh my dear, you are sweet. But I have no need for other guests this evening, not when I have your company to enjoy. That was my only wish."

She gulped, knowing exactly where the conversation was headed and turned her face to examine a few paintings on the wall opposite the table. She'd already stared at them, examined them thoroughly through half of the meal, but they were her one certain 'out' from the conversation.

"Lovely, are they not?"

"Mm," she mumbled back politely.

"I purchased those off of an Italian painter on the west side of the city. He was a poor man, of course, but unexpectedly talented all the same. Funny gift talent can be, showing in places one wouldn't quite believe it might."

Ella sighed softly, thinking of her own situation of talent, the talent she used to live off of and the fact that it arose in a place no different from the aforementioned painter's own. She turned back to her meal as she saw Charles standing from the table, stepping in her direction with brooding, determined eyes of gold.

"Ella, what do you say I go and fetch another bottle of wine? Perhaps we can situate ourselves in the garden, take in the clear sky tonight."

She dropped her fork with a clink on the porcelain plate when Charles lifted her hand off the table, kissed it, and then walked away through a back archway. When he was out of sight, she rose and stood trembling near the foyer, wanting nothing more than to run, hurry across town, through the park to stay out of immediate sight, and then back home. Of course what she wanted, and what she was forced to do, were two very opposing forces.

There was a loud, splintering crash that startled her just the same as the night at Cecelia's had. She froze with fixated eyes toward the dark hall that Charles had disappeared down. She thought it must led to a kitchen or a cellar of some kind, and without thinking first, she began to follow the pounding noise, the sound of beating, bruising urgency. There were grunts of violence and pain, things that she'd heard before in the alleyways of White Chapel. Not in uptown London society, and especially not in the manor of a man like Charles Hennessey. Without maids or servants on staff for the evening, Ella was alone in her investigation and doubly fearful for it.

"Charles?" she called out quietly, approaching the swinging door to the kitchen. She pressed her hand against it just as the noise stopped, and when she pushed back to open it, to reveal the truth of the ruckus, she saw only what she had begged subconsciously to not have to. Ella screamed wildly, her desperation echoing well into the streets of the high class square.

"NO! CHARLES!"

* * *

He wasn't supposed to be investigating Hyde Park. He never investigated there at all. But the force was dry of good men, and with the wanted Cleveland Street killer still running loose through London, the high societal big wigs wanted assurance from Metropolitan's finest that they were alright. It was only because of this, that Frederick Abberline was called to the home of a Charles Hennessey, on the rumored charge of his murder.

Arriving at the crowded front steps with Godley in tow, he took his time entering the home, unlike his usual manners of running into a scene. He slowed his pace for propriety's sake, and also to take in the faces of all possible suspects from the street. If there was one thing he remembered from his days working in the greater London area, it was that high class gentleman were never murdered, and when they were, the guilty often turned out to be an equally high class gentleman of his close relation or niche. Abberline was determined to find that gentleman even before he entered the manor.

When he finally did, he was thrown aback by the rushing scene inside. He'd been called to deliver his knowledge to the case, but there were already forty or more other knowledgeable detectives filling the rooms of the Hennessy estate. In fact, had he not been called over by an uptown inspector, Thomas Reed, concerning a possible witness to the murder, he would have turned out and gone back to White Chapel for the remainder of the evening.

"Abberline, I need your help with this girl. She was here at the time of the murder, but she won't speak."

"What is it you think I can do with 'er?"

"You're good at talking with people who don't _want_ to talk."

Thomas chuckled, showing Fred the way to the dining room of the house. He could see the back of the girl's head. Her dark curls were loosely tied together with a fitting blue ribbon to match the silk of her dress. His lips puckered together with a bite as he eyed Thomas more seriously.

"Find something out for me, lad. Please."

Frederick nodded cautiously as Thomas patted him on the back. He moved towards the chair back where the girl sat unknowingly. Before he made it though, her head turned slightly and he caught her damp eyes from under the billow of messy hair. They were a startling green.

"Good evening, Miss-"

Ella choked on her tears same as he did his words, when she saw his face. And as Abberline sat down in the chair beside her at the table, he too choked, at the sight of her beautifully distressed face.

"Miss Rousseau."

"Inspector Abberline."

"Yes," he replied with a shocked expression, not sure what to think of seeing her so soon at another site of murder. "Playing witness again, are we?"

She sighed with a deep sob and blew her nose into a silk napkin from the table.

"I know what it must look like." Ella's eyes shifted around until she glanced back at him, with sworn promise. "Please don't think me the suspect to this."

"I wouldn't-"

As usual, she cut him off. "You certainly would at our newfound meeting. It's not so dissimilar from the first; the site of a murder, in which I am the only witness. You easily could think the worst of me, Inspector."

"And yet I don't, Ella."

When he spoke her name so genuinely her heart melted right down to her gut.

"However could I think anything o' you, but what I already do? You are a victim."

Her eyes were attached to his as she watched him remove a small journal from his coat pocket. He sat it on the table with a pen, and then brought his free hand across to rub her shoulder lightly with assurance.

"You have nothing t' worry about, but the very obvious."

"Which is?"

"Well," he began, opening the pad for a fresh scrap of paper. "There's someone running about town that has it out for anyone you seem to want to talk to. Suppose I need to watch my back, eh?"

Ella laughed away the tears quietly, making him feel all the more better for his effort.

"Did you know Lord Hennessy well?"

She shrugged. "He had made clear his effort to court me, if that is of significance."

Abberline was afraid of this response, but knew that at least his competition was also the subject of the murder case at hand, so she was potentially still not thwarted into any commitments. He just couldn't seem to understand how she had gone from the dead end streets of White Chapel, to the upper end curve of Hyde Park in a matter of a week.

"He invited you o'er for dinner then?"

Ella nodded and he took notes without words.

"Charles was a good man. Although I must admit, I wasn't interested in the attachment he was making."

Frederick's eyes turned up in surprise. "Then why come?"

"Don't know. Curiosity, maybe."

At this he smiled, watching her trace designs on the linen tablecloth tiredly. "Curiosity once killed a cat, you know Miss Rousseau." He had formed a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, Inspector, I know."

"An' what a brave little cat it was."

Ella caught his eyes with humor and a strange sense of her own ardor. But before she could accept the same in his, he turned down and began taking notes from his own questions again.

"What happened exactly?"

She sighed. "I was here, in the dining room, when Charles left to retrieve a fresh bottle of wine from just down that hall."

She pointed and his eyes followed as he asked, "And a man like Lord Hennessy doesn't have a maid t' do such a thing?"

"No. He told me that he gave them the evening off."

Frederick didn't invest time in that detail, but he knew it was all for privacy's sake. For who wouldn't want to be alone with a young woman like Ella? With her russet curls that shaped her oval, rose-doused face, her plump lips of berry certainty that wantonly begged a man to step closer under her unlikely spell, her breasts as they heaved from within her—

"He was gone for only a minute," she continued, cutting off his silent examination of her. "I stood just here, contemplating leaving, and then there was a crash. This time though it wasn't glass, like at Cecelia's studio. It was the sound of a body hitting the floor. Whoever Charles was fighting must have been stronger than even him, because he was hurt so badly." She began to tear up again and wiped her eyes and nose as he waited for her to go on. "I ran to the kitchen only in time to see it empty of everything but Charles, beaten to death."

"An' Scotland Yard arrived when exactly?"

"Soon after, I suppose. The other residents of the square heard my screams, surely."

"I see."

Ella's eyes left her twisted hands in the napkin to find his.

"Here I am all over again, helping you very little in your research of the case at hand. I'm not a very good witness, am I?"

Abberline smiled and patted her hand gently where it rested on her lap.

"You're as good as anyone can be under the circumstances. Ye got to trust me on that."

And she did. She really did trust him.


	6. The Bite

**February 26th - Swan Street, Cheapside

* * *

**

It was hours later that Ella was informed of the details concerning both Cecelia and Charles' autopsy reports. Because she was involved in the case, Abberline was permitted to show it to her. Not because he actually wished for her to know the things that he could hardly stand to know at times.

She was thorough in her reading of the papers, and took special interest in the small note about the 'teeth-like' mark on Charles' neck. It was the same that was earlier spoken of in Cecelia's case. She discussed this with him as they walked through the park from the undertaker's office. He wasn't sure what to tell her about it, except that it was as odd as she believed.

"Why ever would someone want to bite another? A _biting_ murderer makes no sense at all."

"I agree."

"But there must be a reason still. Do you agree with that?"

Abberline nodded. Her mind was a rush of things that he wanted to know of, things that shone deeply in her eyes.

"You don't think-" she had paused, clutching the papers as she stopped in front of her building. "Teeth. A bite. What do you think of vampires, Frederick?"

His eyes went wide as a smile crawled across his lips. He toyed with his hat in his hands as he tried to think of something to say to her. But all that came was a laugh and the same promise as before, that he planned to do everything he could to find out the truth, while she was welcome to find him at the station if she needed to, for any reason, and at any time day or night.

As she skipped up the back stairwell to her derelict apartment, two blocks from his own home, he whispered once more, a sweet thought for her to savor.

"Sleep well knowing that vampires aren't real, Eloise."

She had laughed, waved goodnight and turned on her heels through the doorway.

In their walk, Frederick had come to understand that her place in society was marked only by her ties to the Parisian Ballet and the fame that had formed of it. Ella explained that she had been born to a modest merchant and his simple wife on the backend of Swan Street all of 23 years ago. Her only reason for returning home in the first place, had been to search out Cecelia and nurse her leg back to its proper form so that she might take the first boat available for Paris again.

Because there was little certainty of this, she was living off of her father's meager inheritance and her own earnings from previous stage status. What he wouldn't say and what he tried not to let on, was that he was concerned for her—concerned for her living situation, her pride, and above all else, her well being in the midst of constant murder. Abberline had nearly lost love to murder before, and not so long ago. He wasn't ready to go down that road again, whether he was sure he was even on that road yet or not.

Ella was brave and unconcerned in a way he wished he could be. She told him not to worry for her, that she would be fine, and that if she wasn't, she would run to him first and foremost. She didn't believe she would need to, not at first.

Though two days later, she had hidden herself away out of contriving fear. With every crash of steel or wood or glass from the nearby factories, she would jump from her chair or drop a book, her stitching or her tea. Ella was on edge, and for reasons she couldn't really understand. All she truly wanted to do was dance, but to do that would require walking through the dark and empty streets alone. It was nine blocks to Adler Street, and to Cecelia's studio. It had yet to be boarded up or evicted since she'd claimed ownership after Cee's murder. But it frightened her all the same to have to travel on foot for its use. If it hadn't been for the continuous temptation in her knee, she might not have attempted it. But she was always out to prove herself and she always did, no matter the risk.

She walked along, beyond the church and the factories and the train stations. She walked past the hat shops and the bakery, through the steel tunnel and as far as the Ten Bells before she even began to feel nervous at all.

It was here, among the penny pinching wenches and thieves and beggars and sodomizing drunks, that she walked with conscious and well opened eyes, sneaking around the corner from the pub. The alleyway was dark, as one should be, and she could hear the occasional grunt or moan from satisfied customers and late night laborers of the dirtiest craft. She saw rats burrow into puddles and holes in the fences, and she smelled death, and careless pleasure, and money being made. Soon, Ella's boots hit the only clean cobblestone in the whole alley and she hurried beyond the single lamp towards the next street. She had almost made it before she heard a voice from behind call out,

"Excuse me, Miss?"

She continued to walk, quickening her pace out of the sincerest of fear. But he followed, the drunken hag of a man, hurrying on her heels when she did the very same. He howled for only her, grunted with desperation.

"Don't run, pet. Come an' spend the night 'ere, with me!"

Ella was nearly around the bend of the alley, when she felt the man suddenly grab her arm and pull her backwards. She struggled against him, screaming out, begging for help even as she tugged her hand free and stumbled back to the wet ground. Her bad knee hit the stones as she cried into her arm and heard the boots of the man scattering. She waited until she could breathe properly before even bothering to look up and see something death awaiting her.

Instead, when she gazed through bleary, tear-soaked vision, all she saw was an empty alleyway, and all she heard were the previous sounds of sinister passion and pennies hitting cobblestones in the darkness.


	7. Haven

**Prescott Street - White Chapel Courts

* * *

**

She was still running by the time she made it to the front steps of the Metropolitan courts, ten blocks from where she'd escaped near death. Ella's heart pounded, her legs were weak and her hands trembled as she walked to the doors and pulled one open. It took with it the last of her strength.

Inside of the building there was no one and nothing but silence, flickering kerosene lamps, and the distant sound of shuffling paper. She breathed deeply and walked towards the front desk where an older gentleman was sound asleep, snoring and drooling on his arm. Instead of waking him, she peered over and stole a glance at the book of room numbers and names beneath him, scanning until she found what she was after.

CHIEF INSPECTOR ABBERLINE, F. - ROOM NO. 382

"Third floor," she whispered to herself.

She snuck up three full flights without ever being caught. Ella tiptoed down the hallway of the third floor, eyes darting between doorways and name plaques until she found exactly what she was looking for and who. _Chief Inspector Abberline. _Somehow reading it or hearing it never seemed to get old to her and she smiled, quietly tapping on the door. She saw a light shining from behind the blurred glass, but received no answer.

Ella slid inside without a single witness to catch her. She was surprised to find that the room was freezing like the rainy night outside, despite their being half a dozen lamps and candles lit for warmth. She turned the corner from the door's alcove and saw something else she hadn't expected. Fredrick was there, but not working as she'd hoped or assumed by the light. Instead, he was half stretched across his desk, same as the man on the first floor, deep in sleep. All she could do was smile with a sigh as she walked towards him.

She wanted to reach out and brush the short curls from his eyes, or stroke the sideburns that grew to the middle of his cheek. She wanted breathe him in, the steady warmth of him, the dryness and exhaustion. But what she really wanted was a kiss. She felt sure she could have tried with the right kind of silence and the right kind of carefulness, but he interrupted her when he stirred awake and caught sight of her beside him. Abberline grumbled a little and rubbed his eyes. He fixed his gaze to be sure it wasn't a dream.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you, Inspector."

He wiped the sleep from his eyes and mouth. "Eloise. Is everything alright?"

"Yes. Yes, of course it is."

He didn't believe her. He could clearly, even in tire, see the stricken fear in her green eyes. But he waited for her to speak it as he rose and offered her his own chair. She sat down, trembling from the rain soaked into her coat and hair. He pulled a blanket from a nearby cupboard, wrapping it over her shoulders and she thanked him profusely.

"I'm alright, I think. I—I don't know. There was someone."

"Someone, who?" he asked with concern, leaning against the desk.

"There was a man, in the alley."

Fredrick's eyes darkened and he leaned towards her, suddenly demanding of answers. "Who? What man, where?"

Ella gulped and wiped her cheeks of the rain still dripping from her hair. "It was behind the Bell Foundry, near the Ten Bells."

"What were ye doing there?"

She grinned. "Walking." Her reply, quick as it was and witty as it was, made him smile briefly too as he moved from the desk to stand before her.

"Walking t' where, Ella?"

"To Cecelia's studio. I wanted to dance tonight."

He nodded, seeing the desperation lingering in her eyes, but not knowing what it was for.

"Did he hurt you?"

Ella recognized how worried he was and she assured him, shaking her wet curls, eyes turned down low as she watched Fredrick kneel to the floor in front of her. He searched for her face. His hand moved to her cheek, to move her eyes to meet his, and she thought she would suffer the worst pain of all. The pain of needing to kiss him.

"Tell me wot' happened."

Her green eyes hunted for something in his. "I couldn't see his face, but he came after me. He chased me. And then I fell and he disappeared."

"You fell?"

"Yes, but it's nothing. My knee, that's all."

She touched her knee through the dirtied, emerald cotton of her dress and Frederick's eyes moved to the same place. Without thinking about what he was saying or why or what it could really mean at all, he asked her quietly, "Mind if I take a look? Make sure you're not bleeding?"

Ella smirked at the turn in the conversation, the one she felt swiftly coming on, and she moved her hand away to let him carefully, modestly, raise the hem of her dress and check her knee. There was a scrape alongside an existing scar—the one he recognized from her painful telling of ballet and surgery and losing Paris—yet there was no bleeding, only mud that he gently stroked away. He dropped the skirts of her dress then and when he found her eyes, they were heavy and timid and wanting, no different than he was sure his were.

"Frederick."

It was his name and it kept him firmly planted in a kneel. His body, his breath and warmth and mouth all moving in closer to hers as he gripped the handles of the chair on either side of her.

"Ella," he murmured as her small hand moved out to touch his neck tie.

"Why are you here alone at night? Don't you have someone to go home to?"

He shook his head and she smiled inside.

"Don't you want someone or wish you had someone, at least?"

The sparkle in his eyes made her head swim as Fredrick eased closer to her mouth and replied, "Yeah. I do most days."

There was no warning from either one of them, no moment to pause and think or recharge or convince themselves that it wasn't right. When their mouths fell to one another's, it was only completely right. Ella leaned down into his lips as he swarmed her gently, his hands on the waist of her dress under her wet coat, pulling her body into his and out of the chair. She held his cheeks with worth, stroking through the soft hair on his face, behind his ears and down the curve of his neck, never willing to let go. The more her fingers wove through his hair, the harsher, more deliberate his mouth was upon hers.

He walked her carefully backwards from the desk to the wall of his office. And when she landed in his arms against the layers of information and facts and morbid case details, he pulled away to breathe soundly against her lips.

"I want you, Eloise."

She couldn't breathe like he could. She couldn't think or move or do anything but stare up at him and hold onto his wrinkled vest coat. He had every bit of her then, and that's what scared her most.

"Why?"

This startled him. But he held her more closely despite it. Her eyes sunk him, threw him for a lost cause into a forest he never wanted to escape. He pressed his nose, then his forehead to hers as he whispered, "There is no reasoning. I do. An' that's it."

"But-" Ella loosened herself from his arms. "But you can't just know something like that. You don't even know me yet, Inspector."

She tried to break away from him, tried to head for the door out of fear, and even that wasn't a possibility. Ella felt his hand wrap about the small of her waist and bring her right back beneath him at the wall, instantly meeting his wanting mouth a second time. And this time, there was no going back for her. There was no denying what she couldn't explain beyond feeling.

His tongue prodded desperately at her lips and she parted them willingly, drowned by the sensation once it reached inside for hers. The firm way he held her body to the wall, to him, kissing her like he might forget how at any moment, letting his tongue dance in manic circles about hers— all of it was so far from wishful wondering now. It was real. And Ella gave into it.

She clung to his neck as he raised her legs one at a time, wrapping them about his body. She felt the strain from behind his black pants begging for her alone. She was ready to give him whatever he wanted, the things she felt she wanted all the same. And she likely would have right there, on his desk of investigation details, against the wall of his office where criminals' paths were put to rest each day. She would have, if a knock on the door hadn't stopped everything so abruptly.

Her tiny boots hit the floor as she felt his hands tremble and fall away from her waist. His lips left hers when the door flew open with a large man's beckoning voice.

"Abberline," he bellowed. She saw the man's face, the Sergeant to Cecelia's case, days before. "I thought I told you to—Oh."

He stopped when he saw Ella at the wall and his friend in the middle of the room, scowling.

"Busy working then, eh?"

Fredrick just stared at him with a forceful eye and Godley smirked, tipping his wet hat.

"Sorry to interrupt, mate. Tomorrow?"

"T'morrow," he replied hastily, showing Godley from the room again. Fred turned to find Ella practically waiting on his heels.

"I should leave."

"No," he sighed and took her face in his hands, twirling his fingers about her wet curls. "Don't go."

"You're delirious from want of sleep," she whispered against his mouth with a small laugh.

"I'm delirious from want o' you, love."

She was bound in his delicately strong arms before she knew it, but only for so long. It was one lasting kiss of heat and comfort and promise that told her she needed to leave him, to clear her head and decide what it all could mean so suddenly. It was foolish of course. But Ella had never been very logical in manners of the heart, especially at the blinking eye of offering love.

She slid from his incomparable warmth, and left a small kiss on his cheek, then smiled and walked to the door of his office.

"When will I see ye again, Eloise? When_ can_ I see you again, there is?"

Her heart was twisted with the pain of turning from him. She sighed as she replied through the crack in the doorway, "Soon, I hope."


	8. Admirer

Thank you to **linalove** and** xxxKatie **for continued support and your lovely comments! And thank you to everyone else reading and enjoying the story so far. This has been one of my favorites of all time to write, and I am currently in the process of putting together a sequel. Please leave comments and let me know what you think, or what I can change, or even what you didn't like. I am as addicted to compliments as constructive criticism!

*hugs* -_Eliza_

* * *

**Adler Street – Madsen Ballet House**, _midnight_

**

* * *

**

It was a matter of necessity—of trying to prove her injury wrong—that kept Ella invested in the dance floor for the whole of the evening. She spun and twirled and skipped and pranced through the air at the distilling sound echoing from the music box in the corner. Sweat poured from her every orifice. It drained her emotionally with each move she made on the tired planks of wood. She thought of Frederick's kiss, over and over and over again. She did this until her reflection in the mirror convinced her that the heat she still felt rising in her gut from his recent memory, was perfectly adequate.

Perhaps it was her concentration on regaining strength, which left her unaware of the company she had so derived. He watched her peaceably at the door, his dark eyes looming over every bend of her slight curves in the binding tights and floating lace of her white skirt. He wanted to slide in and take a firm hold of her, frighten her into playful submission, and show her other ways to move as sensually _together_, as she was providing him the view of singularly. None of it mattered though. Not when only a moment later, the music of the churning box scratch-stopped mid-track and Ella paused breathlessly as she landed on weak feet.

The only sound other than her beating heart was his thunderous, resonating applause. She jumped at the distraction with a gasp, turned to the doorway and gulped at what the view beheld for her.

"That was magnificent indeed." The man, the one from her darkest dreams, smiled coyly as he approached her bent, heaving form in the middle of the room. He was still clapping. "I've never in my life seen a person—or a_ lady_, rather—move so untouchably before."

"You flatter as well as you frighten, sir."

He smirked devilishly, in that way she hated to admit still rattled her brain. He touched her pale, clammy cheek with a soothing caress. Ella angled her face away nervously.

"I apologize for only the latter."

"As well you should," she breathed heavily and moved past him for the glass of water awaiting her by the sink. He was drawn to her feistiness, the same he'd seen the first night on the balcony, and it only made him follow on her heels as she went about her routine. Ella drank deeply, watching his blurred form through the bottom of the glass. She was thinking that she had clearly forgotten to lock the door of the studio. Frederick would not be pleased if he knew that fact.

"I've arrived in the hope that you're now eager enough to deliver a response to my offer."

Her eyes grew weary as she finished the cold water and replaced the glass to the sink. She stared up at his tall, brooding figure with a pounding heart, half from dancing and the other half of a renewed origin at his presence.

"What offer is that? _John_-is it still?"

"Still," he mused as he stood handsomely before her, hands in his coat pockets. "And the unspoken offer was one I find hard to believe you'd so soon forget, darling."

Although she knew exactly what he spoke of, she shrugged. "Yet I promise I have."

"A wretched shame," he sighed as he brushed past her, purposefully letting his hand crawl across her heaving chest in her leotard. Then up to the curve of her neck, to the soft shell of her ear, and eventually off the slope of her trembling back as he moved away. He was halfway through the doorway, his darkness shadowing her with immediate regret, when Ella turned to catch him. It was her distressed voice that won him back.

"Wait."

He did, in a casually sensual turn. His back lit eyes sparked a flame deep within her.

"Remembering now, are we?"

"What if I am?"

Her tone was so innocent, a sound he loved about her. Without a second thought, he walked directly to her side again, breathing in the scent that intoxicated him. It was the divine scent of _her_.

"Well." He whispered huskily. "Upon such a rationale, we shan't waste time, Ella."

He stood overlooking her body, counting the unbearable breaths that made her chest rise and fall in complacency of his every word. He wrapped his arms around her tiny waist without a single disruption in her mood. And she seemed to him, to want what he was blindly speaking of, as badly as anything.

Without another moment's lapse, he shoved her to the nearest wall of the dance studio, his fingers ensnaring her neck as though it were a claw of direct intimacy. He pinned her with his promising weight. Ella breathed with wanton and begging eyes up at him—the stranger, the man with a hasty stare and a broad, dangerous chest. She accepted everything as it began to bubble over in her body, and succumbed to the brashness of his mouth as it struck hers with a cold cleverness. An arctic surge wove throughout each of her bones. She felt threatened by the pleasure coursing in her veins, but welcomed it as she felt his thick, icy tongue reach through the barrier of her lips and search out her own.

In her mind, without warning, she saw a glimpse of Frederick. She remembered the similar position she had been in hours before, inside of his office. She saw his soft mouth replacing a new man's chiseled lips. She saw his promising brown eyes rather than the coal ones that captured her gaze now. And she felt tenderness where now there was only urgency and dependent passion.

The new man, John, began to quickly lift away the lace of her tulle skirts, searching out the best avenue to the seam of her lower leotard. He found it without ever removing his mouth from the want and need of hers. His long, desiring fingers began to strip away the silk tights on her legs before she even had a chance to assist, or think, or stop him from taking advantage of her. Ella imagined how disrupting it might have looked from an outsider's point of view, seeing a man of no fact or shared story, intruding on her practice, luring her with his evening eyes and locking her to a wall with the swear of no return.

She was taken away from the debate, by the sensation of his fingertips stroking through the warmth of her entire being, the center of her most cosmic fantasies. Eloise fell to the brick wall without another thought or regret.

"You seep of passionate need, Miss Rousseau."

His voice, cooing intimacies in her ear, was overwhelming, and too different from Frederick's to make her feel any more at ease. But she moaned when he acknowledged her anxiousness and drew inside of her with one cool, marble finger. As she mewled with the intrusion, he added another, and her nails dug into the skin of his neck beneath the collar of his coat.

"Speak my Eloise—" he groaned against her mouth as he swirled his tongue across her lips.

She fell into the balance of his fingers beneath her skirts and his bruising kisses on her mouth. "_You_—you are—" Bliss washed over her as her mouth gaped with the thrusting force of his fingers against her innermost cinders. "Your hands are—_wonderful_…"

He smiled in satisfaction as she breathed the compliment upon his mouth. It only made him work his spell-binding ministrations upon her that much more, that much smoother as she began to cry. Ella fell limply within his protective arms, her leg hooked at his hip but sliding uncontrollably as she felt every bit of her filled with a haze of white too foggy to see through. She sensed the welling of something deep inside of her that she had missed in a lover for too long. His fingers swirled within, stirring the reaction to its final bow of tingling warmth.

And finally, John brushed the few sweating curls from the twist at her neck, stared deeply into her emerald eyes and then lunged forward to her throat. He grazed the surface with his sharp teeth in a soft manner, where he claimed her memory with his untouchable touch and his unspeakable craving.

She was his. And for it, he was contented without needing a release of his own. _Yet_—

There was nothing more to do as she slid from his arms, the flats of her ballet soles landing on the wood floor once more and the stars fading in her eyes up at him. Ella was drained, unable to think, even as he kissed her clammy forehead and brushed her sated cheek with his own, cooling her in a strange way.

"I'll leave you to envisage what's to come."

Her jaw slowly fell in fear of his leaving as he turned, his hand slipping from hers.

"Please, don't go."

She suddenly felt she understood how Frederick had hours before at her departure. But he kept moving for the door, with a smile crossing his wicked lips and a glint in his blackened eyes.

"Fear not. You'll dream of me, pet."

And without another word, on a similar gust of imaginary, almost forgotten wind, he was gone from her sight.


	9. Mourning

**February 27th – Abney Park Cemetery

* * *

**

It had been the worst night of tossing and consistent turning that Ella had ever known. She slept for only minutes at a time, until the grey dawn of London forced her from bed again. Her heart swelled with too many things, too many uncertainties.

She saw in one corner of her mind, Charles, who was to be buried within the hour of her waking. The funeral was to be held miles across the city, where class and society ran high, a place she'd ignored for too many days. In another corner she felt Frederick, who held her heart captive whether she was ready to admit it or not. And then there was her late night audience of one, John somebody, a man who despite his unforgiving advances, had left her aching for only more of what he had gifted her with, the fill she craved.

She tried to focus on only the mourning of her previous courter throughout the morning, though. Ella dressed in one of her high end Parisian gowns—black crepe silk with streams of satin buttons. She wove her hair into soft spindles, tied them simply with a matching black ribbon and donned a weeping veil that shadowed every streak of fear and anger and sadness she had resolved to release for Mr. Hennessey.

It was into the drizzling rain of early day that she walked beneath the bow of her black umbrella, headed for an awaiting carriage on the street. There was nothing at all to be loved about this day, no more than it had been a week prior for her dear friend Cecelia's burial in White Chapel. She would cry all over again, regretting the short attachment she had made to a man marked for such a horridly unfair death.

The horses trampled over the wet cobblestones for blocks and blocks, crossing too many streets to count and arriving at the cemetery as the rain began to fall more determinately, but ever as soft. Eloise was helped from the carriage door, and under the quieted helm of her umbrella and veil, she stepped down the wet pathway towards the crowd of dark figures. She breathed to keep her eyes and nose dry, having forgotten her silk tissue in the coach.

But she was surprised to find, as she settled in at the back of the funeral procession, that someone was holding out a handkerchief for her disposal. She turned her eyes to the bold silence of Frederick's smile.

"What are you doing here?"

He hesitated to speak, still holding the cloth towards her between their umbrellas.

"I can leave, if you'd prefer."

"No," Ella replied desperately. "I didn't mean—don't go."

Frederick motioned the handkerchief to her closer. She took it into her gloved hand with a silent _'thank you'_ in her piercing green eyes from behind the veil. She broke his heart with the rolling of tears down her velvet cheeks as she wiped the sadness onto the cloth.

"I came today," he whispered as he stepped closer to her, his hand soothing on her back. "Because I knew you'd be here and I needed t' tell you what I discovered last night after ye left."

"What?"

Her eyes went wide with curiosity as the ceremony commenced at a distance. He rubbed her back, his fingers playing with on of the satin buttons on her dress. He returned with a gesturing nod to the priest delivering a sermon near the headstone.

"After the service, perhaps?"

Ella looked in the direction he motioned and nodded quietly. She fell into the tenderness of his hand at her back, his breath in the air around her and the sound of raindrops dancing on the leaves of the elms that stood tall overhead.

Charles Hennessey was a popular victim. Indeed, he had nearly the whole of high societal London bearing witness to his descent from the world. Suited and pearled—men and their wives stood from one end of the cemetery to the next, weeping, remembering, and most of all praying that they would not soon be a likely corpse the same. Frederick watched them, and knew somewhere inside, with the new knowledge only he of the guests retained, that it was all too possible at any moment.

Until that moment though, Eloise was in his arms, her head resting upon his shoulder as she cried deeper and deeper, falling to a place that even he knew wasn't for Charles Hennessey as much as it was for herself. It was her that most of the surrounding guests were looking to, her that they were unsure of and better yet terrified for. He could sense it made her fear for her own life that much more. But what none of them knew was that he had every last intention of fighting to keep her safe. He decided he would never let Ella worry beyond what nature saw fit. He had already sworn to himself, that he would be there to stand between her and the evils of midnight London, eternally.

When the ceremony dulled and Frederick had helped Ella to the gravesite to lay a single white rose upon Charles' casket, he was more than glad for it to have ended. He had never been in any way comfortable at funerals, whether for the rich or the poor, the latter of which lain dead at his feet every day. He had buried both of his parents in the passing years, a sister, and his own wife and child. No. Cemeteries were not a place he wanted to be, if it could be helped at all. He was only glad to be there for Eloise.

Frederick walked her away to the street again, where he insisted she walk with him, and to send her waiting carriage elsewhere.

"It's raining."

"And so 'tis," he smiled with a gentle palm to her cheek. "But I know a place we can talk."

Ella was cold and damp, but one look in his eyes at the promises he seemed to always be making to her, and she had sent her carriage off and let Frederick's soothing arm lead her away.


	10. Research

**Victoria Library – Hyde Park

* * *

**

She sat with trembles running the course of her spine, her hands twisted together on the mahogany desk in the middle of the grand artifice. She gawked at the cascading ceilings and tried to ignore the men and women that stared blankly at her from other tables. Ella was sure she looked pitiful, shaking from the cold in her mourning garb, settled in the middle of the fictional science aisle of the library. But one whisper in her ear from Frederick, as he slammed a pile of large books down in front of her, quieted all of her worries as she stared at him.

"This is everything I could find on th' subject."

She leaned towards him as he sat, confusion burning her tongue.

"You still haven't told me what this subject is."

He smiled briefly and opened the first text resting on top of the pile, written by a man named William Polidori and titled _The Vampyre. _He scanned through the aged pages with a wandering eye and fingertip as she watched. When he'd found what he had been after so diligently, Frederick turned his eyes back to Ella and brought the book closer to her, pointing at the line.

"Read here."

She did as she was asked, silently repeating the words of the text as though they were meant to prove something. **"'There were no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there. Upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein—And to this, men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "**A _Vampyre_**…'"**

Ella turned her uncertain olive eyes to Frederick again. He was ready to give all the explanation she would ever need, at a cost of scaring her even more. He began somberly, drawing both of her hands into his, warming them at the touch. "Last night, after you left the courts, I was called t' oversee an incident in Cheapside." Her eyes grew cloudier when he confirmed, "On Swan Street, only yards from your home."

"What kind of an incident?"

"It was the murder o' a young girl. Josephine Scott. No more aged than you, Eloise."

The tears welled in her eyes as he prepared to brush them away.

"And wot' I came upon is what you've just read in this book." He gestured towards it with his dark eyes. "Her body was frigid, unscathed, unharmed save for a single mark. One bite on 'er neck."

Ella gulped back her horror. "I thought you said vampires weren't real."

He nodded, having known she would remember his hesitancy to believe.

"I admit. I am a man of solitary reasoning when it comes t' death, especially murder. I see it every day, an' every case has its origins, whether be it greed or envy or lust. There is no senseless killing without at least a sensible foundation, Ella."

"And yet you've found your answer in a gothic myth."

"A theory, yes. A possibility, although a strange one it may be. After seeing wot' I did of this girl last night, I can only stand to wonder further."

She understood, having had her first bout of curiosity days before. But knowing that the latest victim had been found within feet of her home, of the place where she laid down to rest at night, to dream without want or thought of being killed in the process, made Ella's eyes fill with pain and panic all over again. Frederick's feelings were not so dissimilar, and as he stroked her wet cheeks in the silence of the library's turning pages and flickering lamps, he knew what offer had to be made; the one he'd spent the day developing inwardly.

"I can't let you continue lodging in Cheapside. I can't Ella." Her eyes shifted up once more to his, comforted by the care she saw welling deep inside of the orbs framed by his boyish chestnut curls. "You're as likely to become prey as another girl of only half your attraction." She fell into his touch, smiling at the flattery. "I would gladly send you back to Paris, if that's where you want-"

"No," she whispered with a shake of her head in his hands. "I don't want to go to Paris."

"Then Bishopsgate perhaps? I'll find you a place to stay, nearer to me. I can keep an eye on you, protect you. You'll be safe in that part o' town."

She sighed halfheartedly. She had hoped he would offer something different, his own house perhaps. Without thinking or knowing how to think properly anymore, Ella herself found all cause to voice the opinion.

"Is it so well beyond decorum's sake then, that I cannot stay with you, Frederick?"

A tired grin crawled across his lips as he wiped one existing tear from the corner of her eye, and brushed a loose curl behind her ear. With nothing more to wonder about her, or become hopeful of or dream up for himself, he was left with only one reply.

"No, o' course it's not. For you see," he whispered. "That was to be my next offer, love."


	11. Shelter

**Devonshire Row – Bishopsgate, London

* * *

**

They were quiet on the stroll to Abberline's home, saying very little, but understanding each other in the way they stared and wove their fingers together. Once there, in the shadows of early night, he walked her inside, knowing she was the first woman he'd offered to the step in almost five years. Mary never came here with him. Only Victoria. Only her memory still lasted here, if at all.

His hand trembled slightly on the knob of the doorway in the darkness as he listened to her breathing, her footsteps, and the movement of her black gown when she moved in past him. He flicked on the kerosene lantern over the fireplace and one on a nearby table as Ella watched him carefully. Her eyes were aglow with the flickering lights when he turned to take her umbrella, then her coat—both still damp—and toss them into of one of the chairs with his. He remained behind her, his hands warm as they stroked her arms, and his breath the same as it fell down her neck. It lingered along the slope of her dress where the freckles high on her back were visible to him.

"You're so cold," he whispered as his lips pressed against the drying curls on the back of her head. One of his arms wrapped around her waist to the front. "Can I get you some tea?"

Ella shook her head. "No tea. Thank you."

"No? Then wot'—"

He should have known he would be cut off by her. He should have realized by then that it was the way in which she seemed to want to converse in desperate and confused moments. He should have known she would turn around in his arms and throw herself at him, just the way he was silently wishing.

Her mouth was on his before he knew he had the proper legs to even begin walking, or the rightful arms to lift her up from the floor and carry her to the bedroom. And yet he did all of this. Fredrick landed inches from the bed and laid her down into the very middle, falling somewhere between her spread legs of cotton and lace, hooked perfectly into place. Ella's arms around his neck—securing his mouth to hers the way her legs did the rest of his body to hers—were all he thought he'd ever need again in this life, the things he'd missed for far too long. She moaned against his mouth and he released her lips, staring down into her eyes.

"You believe me now, do ye?"

Ella smiled and traced over his lips with her finger.

"Believe that you're what I want, Ella? Believe me when I say, I've wanted you since I first met ye?"

"You have?"

He replied arduously, "Since I first touched those bare toes o' yours."

Ella giggled and reached her mouth out to his harshly. She was desperate of all the things she'd missed since the last moment they had touched. He kissed her with a longing spirit as he worked the ties on her bodice of her dress and the laces of her boots down below. He unhooked black buttons and untied ebony ribbons, he tugged away mourning stockings and threw off skirts until all that was left beneath him was a simple young girl in a white chemise. She was breathing heavily, shed of the darkness she'd been enveloped in all day and pleading with a spark in her olive eyes.

Then, too unexpectedly for words, he turned her over to her stomach with a brashness she hadn't known quite so well from a gentleman before. His hand grabbed her hip, pulling her silk shift up her thigh, revealing her smooth bottom to him in the low yellow candlelight. Ella gasped against the sheets, her arms stretched over her head as her toes tingled with his touch, at the pinch of his fingers on her waist and inner thigh as he pressed the stiffness of his unbuttoned pants toward her heat. She wasn't sure what his intention was from the position he held her in, with her chemise pulled both up to her waist and down from her bared shoulders. But his free hand traced down the ridges of her delicate spine and she let her back arch towards his driving waist without another thought.

He grunted her name once, and with a swiftness she knew she'd never experienced from a lover, Ella felt her slick folds penetrated and her body consumed from behind by every long, throbbing inch of him. He held her body steadily as he fell down to press his lips to the boney flesh between her shoulder blades, kissing as many times as he felt them flinch with his direct thrust. He'd known this wasn't her first time. He could sense it by her urgency alone. He knew he wouldn't and didn't and could never hurt her, because somewhere deep inside where she kept everything hidden same as him, she was already hurt too much to hurt anymore now.

Fredrick also knew that Ella had secretly wanted the unexpected jolt of passion that he himself required, the vigor, the ardor of no warning. Because in a place like White Chapel, in a dirty, hateful city like London, and after an afternoon like the one she'd obviously had, it was the only thing that would make her forget. And it was certainly the only thing that would ever make him forget. There was eternity to make soft, slow love to her. But desperation and desire controlled them tonight.

He watched as her hands gripped the sheets with every anxious shudder of bone and skin, every thrust he made and every release he granted her hips when he pulled back out. He examined the way her dark tresses hid a pink blemish at the right curve of her throat, and how only in this wild light and this position, it could be observed. Abberline bent down to press his chest to her sweating back and with a long thrust inside of her again, he reached the scar and licked it softly as she whimpered into the mattress. She tangled her fingers with his offered hand of support.

Suddenly, he took a firm hold of her long brown curls with the opposite hand and quickly began to pound into her, wanting it too badly to pace himself for her benefit. "Oh _Ella_," he groaned into her ear as her face turned back, searching for his mouth. He kissed her deeply with a mouth half agape as the drive of him inside of her edged on, suiting her every need, her every unspoken want or yell or screech or sigh. He never stopped pushing. He never stopped showing her what he could give to her for the whole of forever if she so wanted it.

Fredrick was determined to leave his mark on Ella. He wanted to make her his without having to concern himself with her leaving, or dying, or not staying around.

And in the midst of the aspiration to make her only his, there was a burst of unequivocal energy that erupted under her skin when she released all of herself to him, covering him in the moisture of certain glory, of beauty right before his very eyes. He watched it all take place. He watched as her hips rolled down against his lashing mold, watched as she came incessantly, with every wave that hurried through him and into her.

He studied the curvature of her spine, the breathing pattern that changed as swiftly as his eyes roved from one limb of hers to the next. He became so fully aware of Ella in that moment that he felt sure he knew more than the rest of the world ever could. He fought his way to a powerful but slow end and fell down to the bed, taking her into his arms eagerly.

Together, they were tangled up in candlelight and the sound of pattering raindrops on the dark windows of the room. They found the proper tempo of breathing and touching and kissing until all that was left was a smile upon her face and a sinister glow in his eyes.

"Wasn't too rough. Was I, love?"

Ella felt him nuzzle his fuzzy cheek against hers from behind and she couldn't help but to sigh in contentment.

"No, not at all. You were perfect."


	12. February Rain

**February 28th -

* * *

**

The rain had stopped sometime in the middle of the following dawn. When it did, Ella's eyes fluttered open to reveal the stillness of the room around her. She lay tangled in warm sheets, those that had covered not one body, but two simultaneously moving forms the night prior. And yet she rolled over to find an empty place in the bed, where no arms were reaching out to catch her and no lips were waiting to devour her. She drew a pout as she sat up and grabbed Frederick's discarded shirt at the end of the bed. It was longer than she expected, even for his slight form, and her feet fell to the floor as it swallowed her to mid-thighs.

Eloise wandered to the window, feeling the cold of the passing rain on her fingertips. Then she walked around the room, touching his worn clothes on a chair back, stroking the small ornaments on his dresser, and eventually leaving out of the door she remembered him carrying her through the evening before. In the hall leading to the parlor, she heard the sound of shuffling papers and growling. She tiptoed until she turned the corner and saw Frederick standing before a small table, hunched over in a close examination of something as his fist pounded the oak ledge.

When he heard the delicate crack of her toes on the wood floor, he looked up to see her in the grey light of morning.

"I didn't mean t' wake you. I'm so sorry."

"You didn't." Ella walked closer, hugging his shirt to her skin for warmth. "Is something the matter?"

Not wanting to frighten her any more, he shoved the papers together quickly and tucked them inside of a folder bound for the courts later that morning.

"It's nothing."

She saw the lie in his eyes, the one that was there for her safety, her peace of mind. But she didn't want that. She wanted to know everything about the continuing case, the havoc that surrounded her. She needed it. So she stepped towards him, leaned close enough so that he could smell the lavender radiating from her skin and hair, and snatched the folder away from his clutching hand.

"Ella, don't—"

"I want to know what you know," she demanded as she sat down in a chair of the parlor.

Abberline followed nervously, biting his thumbnail as he sat down before her on a foot stool, watching and waiting while her eyes scanned over every detail of the case folder. It was of another murder, a girl as fragile and ripe as Ella, found in a gutter three blocks from the cathedral at Bishopsgate. Godley had delivered the information to him an hour prior, sentimental of the guest he held in the opposite room. Abberline had promised to come to the office only when Ella woke.

"What about the teeth marks? Did she have any?"

He shook himself from the spell of thinking too much and looked into her eyes.

"She did."

"Then what are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be out trying to find this _vampire_ killer?"

Abberline caressed her bare knees where his shirt settled on her body, and stared up at her with a certain pride in the way she seemed as determined as he would have liked to be.

"I didn't want to leave you."

"I'm alright. You need to go to work."

Unexpectedly, she rose from the chair, pulling him off the stool as well. Ella tugged on his hand, leading him to the front door, where she forced each of his arms into his coat. He laughed as she grabbed his neck tie from the foyer table, wrapping it around his neck with a kind smile. For a small moment, it reminded him of the mornings all those years gone away, that Victoria would stand at the door as he dressed for work, waiting with his neck tie and a kiss. Then he came back to reality and saw Victoria's satin blue eyes replaced by the forest green of Ella's, and he breathed knowingly at the truth. She was what was real now.

"Trying to be rid o' me so soon today, love?"

"No," she whispered on his warm lips. "But I don't want you to risk unemployment for my sake. I'll be quite fine here on my own."

"Promise you won't leave?"

She shook her head as he held her waist in his hands and pushed her to the wall near the doorway. His pants probed her thigh, revealing what she had so easily stirred. His fingers twisted around her soft curls as he breathed her in completely.

She swore, "I won't go anywhere, Frederick. I'll be right here waiting when you get back."

"I like the sound o' that," he murmured huskily on her lips as he consumed them. Her heart raced when he lifted her bare feet from the floor and wrapped her smooth legs around his waist, hooking her in place against the wall of the house. He tasted her, reveling in the thought of what he would find to comfort him upon his return from work. Then broke the kiss for only a moment to inquire, "You'll lock th' door after me, yeah?"

Ella nodded with a heavy breath as she forced his lips back to hers a second time, not wanting him to go but knowing that he needed to. She swirled her tongue throughout the heat of his mouth until she found his, and dueled for control even as her position weakened and she fell back to the floor in his arms. She laughed softly and brushed down the tension in his brow.

"Be safe," he begged of her in a tender whisper.

She returned as well, "You be safe."

With one last kiss on her lips, on her nose and the top of her messy head of curls, he was gone, regrettably, into the cold February morning without her.

* * *

**Rose Alley, Bishopsgate** – _Noon_

* * *

Situated at the corner on a dead end block of alley space, was a stain of rain-washed horror. On the worn cobblestones of the districts forgotten junction—it's most offensive pathway—was the lingering scent of fresh blood spilled from another innocent.

Abberline knelt down, his fingertips running over the dried stones, eyes closed in an attempt to master a trick long since overridden with honest detective work. The hallucinogenic remedy fueling his system had been a purposeful stop on his way to Rose Alley. He hadn't intended it to keep his own demons at bay this time, but instead to raise the ones that were threatening another. Ella namely.

"Hear any voices today?"

His eyes tightened through the mockery as he brought his fingertips to the bank of his nostrils, inhaling the memory rather than the copper sting of blood.

"Only the usual."

Godley took one last drag from his cigarette as he leaned on the brick wall over the ground space, shaking his head.

"Two girls. A middle aged dance instructor an' a well to do son o' the bloody Parliament. No connection at all, is there?"

Frederick did not respond. He stood from the ground, moving his gaze to one side of the street and then to the other. He wondered in silence where the killer might have originated to attack the second girl, a Delilah Blake. There were no pubic gates along the building's exterior and especially not from the side they resided at, leaving the possibilities open to anything. The slaughterer could have found her streets away and brought her to Rose Alley of their own accord.

It was an endlessly open situation.

"You said when ye saw her, this morning, her lips were raw and her tint was all but lost?"

Godley shuffled around Frederick with a nod. "Aye. Frozen by night, I'd say Inspector."

"But she hadn't been dead more than two hours when ye arrived. Patrol found her here at what time? Six?"

"There about."

He watched confusingly as Abberline wandered in a small circle on the sidewalk, back and forth between his thoughts, putting pieces together slowly.

"The North end constables patrol this alley regularly, yeah?"

Annoyingly, his friend sighed. "By th' hour. Same as always, lad."

"An' hour in the cold would not turn a girl to utter stone. A week in this subtle cold would not."

"Wot' are ye suggesting then?"

"I'm suggesting we stop looking for a man."

Godley stared at Abberline, all seriousness welling in his drugged eyes.

"And start looking for a phantom, Sergeant."

When Frederick turned away and headed down the wet street again, Godley chased his heels in an uncertain tumble, a growl of warning under his breath.

"_Abberline_! Ye harried fool..."


	13. Bathing

**Devonshire Row – **_9 pm_**

* * *

**

A full day's hours dwindled by, leaving Ella lonely in her scrutiny of Abberline's home. She drifted from room to room, touching things left forever unchallenged, wiping away dust as she saw it and making minor adjustments to crooked frames on the walls and misplaced books on the shelves. She lingered at every window of the house, staring down into the tireless streets of the rugged London she'd always known, the one that had bred her as equally as it must have Frederick. She drank cup after cup of tea, easing her mind of his work being done and hoping that he might only return safely, with good news in the matter.

When she couldn't let herself think about it anymore, and as the gray sky began to fade to a preempting violet, Ella finished making his bed and turned for the bathroom. She still wore nothing but Frederick's musky shirt from the night before, and lifted it away slowly as she cross examined herself in a mirror on the wall. Her curls were drawn and exhausted, her cheeks were flushed with boredom and the stale air of the room.

They brightened once she began to draw steaming water into the tub for a bath. She sat bare on the rounded edge as she waited for it to fill, and breathed in the fog of the room, cleansed of all the penetrating fear she felt in just being alone. Although she pushed Abberline from the house to work—to solve the case of a paranormal predator on the loose—she still wished that he could have been there, kissing her and whispering those same sweet promises in her ear.

Refocusing, she saw a bottle sitting on a small table by the bath, and when she turned the label to face her, revealed absinthe. Her father had once taken to this taste when she was but a young girl. She knew of its likely effects even before she began pouring it into the glass. She knew that it would probably not be the right thing to consume. But Ella was too tired to debate the hallucinogenic nature of a simple drink.

She gulped at the emerald toxin heartily until she felt the water touch the pads of her fingers dangling inside of the tub ledge. She turned the faucet back and slid inside to the cloudy depths, sinking below the water, eyes closed and her breath held, as she drifted into the nothingness of a million bad thoughts and wanting dreams.

* * *

_Ella slowly came clean of the water, her eyes widening in the candlelight of the bathroom as she gasped for what little air she could find in the steam. Her skin burned, her cheeks were sated with a ferocious sort of need. And only then did she notice the hands that slowly trailed down from the back of the tub, to her wet shoulders, and even further until they fondled both of her breasts softly. She moaned first at the touch, her toes curling beneath the clouded water, and then at the sound of a voice, the one she'd waited for. _

"_Darling little Eloise," he cooed into her soaked neck. "Did I not tell you I'd be here waiting, in your dreams?"_

_She sighed into the touch as she watched one of his hands slide down her stomach and beneath the water's surface. "You did-" she was cut by the sensation she had missed, of his icy elegant fingers weaving through the barrier of her thighs, reaching the core that ached for attention at the very sound of his voice. _

**"**_**On thy withered lips and dry, which like barren furrows lie. Brooding kisses I will pour…"** Ella broke John's poetic mode and gasped loudly with his intrusion's increased ferocity. As he soothed her temple with a wet kiss, her desired omen concluded, **"Shall thy youthful heat restore…"**_

_Her heart beat and her head reeled as it drifted back towards his chest outside of the tub. Her eyes drew backwards to the ceiling, then further until she could see the pools of his black stare, hovering maddeningly. _

"_Let me finish you, pet. Consent to my burn."_

_She did, subsequently, as his stone cold fingers moved quickly inside and out of her. His second hand teased the rising peaks of her breasts outside of the water's heat. Ella could feel herself falling without want of stopping. She felt her heart racing like a drum within her chest, and her eyes glazed over with the danger that his radiated into her. She wanted whatever he was offering tonight, whatever he was here to give._

_And as she cried his name into the foggy darkness overhead, soaring and then spiraling downward with the graze of her admirer's familiar teeth against her neck, she felt something else pulling her from the beauty of the moment. Another necessity, another man's sensed homecoming._

_

* * *

_

Eloise broke the tension of the water with a splash across the floor. She breathed heavily as she slumped to the rounded back of the tub, her arms draped with a sigh of unfortunate pleasure, of hallucinated pleasure. There had been something so realistic about the feeling derived beneath the bathwater. Something resonated still as she drew her hand down the curve of her small waist, under the surface to where the heat of her center throbbed from a touch only dreamed.

Or so she imagined.

It wasn't until Ella finished running the soap free of her dark curls, and stood in the tub reaching for the towel on the nearby chair, that she saw something out of place. On the chair back, was draped a long black coat of the finest English stitchery, a coat that no police Inspector could hope to afford, and one that she was certain had not been in the room prior to her bath. Dripping wet, she wrapped a towel around her tiny form and lifted the coat to the light of a close lamp. She pressed its collar to her nose and knew it smelled nothing like Frederick. But even more fearful was the notion that it smelled like something else entirely, like a dream.

It smelled distinctly of peppered musk and a high societal, West London breeze.

* * *

(Poem—_"A Song of a Young Lady to her Ancient Lover"_ By: **John Wilmot**)


	14. The Muse

**Metropolitan Yard **– _11 pm

* * *

_

He wandered down the street with thoughts of immoral intoxication. Abberline recalled to memory just the way Ella felt beneath his grasp, the tenderness of her powder rich skin, the silk curls that bunched together in his palm as he drove her to the hilt of ecstasy, even the aroma of her body after the waves of pleasure had rolled away and sincere bliss had remained upon the sheets of his bed.

As he walked through the cloudy night, he reminded himself of how she tasted, her lips like rose petals from a divine branch, and her breasts as tart as the juices that he had seen flow free of her when given the opportunity to breed love itself. He tried desperately to do only one thing when he thought of her, and that was to understand what sort of inebriation it would require, what sort of toxic membrane a human would have to have, in order to eat at the ripe flesh of another. And most importantly, a beautiful girl like his Eloise.

Images of tissue sucking, bone chewing, terrestrial spirits had filled his mind for most of that day. He had hurried from one office of the station to the next, questioning all detectives involved in the four murders under his study. He had asked of the nature in which they first found the bodies, the temperature of the corpses, exact time schedules, weather conditions and anything else that he saw fit to cross examine with the details he already had in the stack of folders he clutched under his arm.

He wanted to know that finding a vampire—if that's where the case was so headed— would not finally lead him to his own cell at the asylum. He wanted to know that the petite blonde found on Rose Alley that morning, was to be the last of the victims, or at the very least, the last of the ones threatening his belief that Ella was somewhere close on the list to be savored. And most of all perhaps, was the want in him to know that whoever was devouring bodies in the city, whoever was draining the living veins of these innocents, would not so easily escape his grasp when eventually he did come to face them.

It was just as he turned the corner for home, that he came face to face with someone completely unexpected. It was a man who seemed generally out of place on the black streets of the White Chapel district. He stopped in his tracks with a brief smile and a gentlemanly nod towards the figure.

"Lord Rochester, good evening."

He returned the smile, but the emphasis of his greeting was different, toned.

"Inspector Abberline, isn't it?"

"It is."

The arrogantly poised man of good fortune sighed. "And what news of the Hennessey case, sir? Any developments I might pass along to the 'tormented patriarchs' uptown?" His laugh was dark with the question, almost frightening Abberline.

"I'm afraid not. Only more bodies—_unfortunates_—laid t' rest."

"More you say?"

The man approached him closely on the street corner, his lack of coat in the icy February night catching Frederick's eye with surprise. He seemed comfortable despite it. Abberline nodded, with his free hand in the pocket of his own coat and the other struggling to hold the countless folders. Somewhere in the middle of his aristocratic run-in, he noticed that along with the skimp attire of a vest and white shirt in the cold, that no visible steam fled Wilmot's lips as he spoke, not like that of his own breath.

"If I might be so bold, Lord—"

"Please," he interrupted with a genuine grin. "John."

Frederick nodded to accept. "John. I wonder, wot' could possibly entertain you on this side o' the city, especially at our renowned witching hour?"

"As I've heard the same," he smiled again as he ran his hand through his shortly cropped black hair. "And if you must know, I seek nothing more than a curiosity fulfilled here. Destitution, poverty. It is an unreachable wonder in Hyde Park, as you well know."

"Fortunately so."

"Yes. Fortunately. But swept streets and polished dishware can only so far arouse a man with his pen and words. I seek tragic inspiration that the Palace gardens refuse to provide."

Abberline acknowledged this, minding the truth of the Earl, of his inherited talent for words from a great-great grandfather of the same name. Or so, the rest of the world believed was the truth of his being.

"Well," Frederick shuffled with a generous nod. "I wish you well then, to find a _muse_ somewhere here. Whether it turns to infestation or not is left to be seen, o' course."

"But of course."

John smirked dangerously as he moved aside, saying a mannerly farewell to the Inspector and watching him turn down the street for his home. It was a place he himself knew all too well, all too suddenly that evening. He hid in the shadows with an angry bite into his lower lip, drunken by a leftover scent wafting around his head from Abberline's coat fibers. It stirred in him an image too recently devoured, of a ruby-lipped, silk spread form in a tub. Ella lingered on Frederick even at the passing of a day. That's how delicious she was.

And when he turned for the back alleyway, he could do nothing more than whisper with a mischievous grin.

"A mutual muse indeed, Inspector."

* * *

**Frederick's House –**

* * *

He turned the knob, walked inside to the warmth of the crackling fireplace in the parlor, as well as a few low burning candles scattered in the dining room and hall. Frederick shucked his coat, scratched his dog's ears where he was perched in the same old chair, and then made his way towards the bedroom of his home. His face was a treasure hoard of emotions, all of them good and hopeful, wanting and at peace with knowing what he would surely find.

He cracked the door to the room and stepped in to unexpected blackness. This room was not as warm as the rest of the house. In fact, it was frozen, forcing a chill to strike his spine one vertebrae at a time as he headed for the bathroom.

"Ella?"

The door was ajar and a light shone within, but no one answered. He pushed it back and let the steam of a lately drawn bath boil the pores of his cheeks and forehead, his mess of wavy hair sticking to his skin with the moisture and heat. There was nothing in the bathroom either, no sign of his every moment's consumed thought, his Eloise. He sighed in concern and turned back through the bedroom, down the hall and to the kitchen. That was where, beside a warm teapot, he found a small piece of paper and her note of absence.

**_My dearest Frederick, _**

**_ I meant to be still in your home when you arrived. I had no intention of leaving, honestly. But I felt the dying urge to return to the studio tonight. _**

**_I know what you said, but you must understand the importance of my dancing, the personal esteem I require of it._**

**_ Do not worry for me. I will be alright and back soon. _**

**_ Amorously yours,_**

**_ Ella_**

_Do not worry for her? _He scoffed at the thought as he dropped the note.

Frederick walked the perimeter of the parlor blowing out candles and re-lighting them for entertainment, for anything to keep his mind off of Ella being without him somewhere. For the distance of an hour, he stumbled through the rooms and toyed constantly over the details resurfacing within his mind, things that he had already begun to strategically puzzle together.

There were images of frozen young girls, purple mouths and iced bones. There was the sole lesion upon his perfectly soft, unscathed Eloise, at the turn of her neck to jaw. There was a man—an inherited societal rebel—turning through the darkest corners of the worst streets in all of London, without so much as a coat or visible breathing pattern to ward off the February chill. And lastly, as he rubbed the ache in his stressed and furrowed brow, Abberline glanced down to the note left in his hand, the note from a girl.

She felt a '_dying urge' _to return to her studio. And for that alone, he knew he could do no differently.

Frederick pulled on his coat and hat, before locking the door and hurrying into the dark streets of night once more. If Ella wanted to dance, then she would have an audience. He'd sworn she would be safe, and something about the night, something about that particular hour in the world, sent a nervous jolt coursing throughout his body. He didn't trust London with her alone in it.


	15. Cemetary

**St. Helen's Cemetery** – _Midnight

* * *

_

Ella was making a mistake. She knew it the moment she had left Frederick's home and begun her stroll through the dark and empty streets of Cheapside. She knew it was the worst thing she could have attempted. She knew also, that she was going to regret it terribly if he ever found out where and what she had been up to.

In the breast pocket of John's coat, the one he had left for Ella, the one she wore now—the evidence of his having been there with her, tub and all—he had also left a small note on soft parchment. It read simply:

**_Meet me at St. Helen's yard._**

No more and no less, however he had managed to leave it. It was enough for her to understand where and what might become of the night's depth. And that was all.

Ever the curious child, ever the curious young woman at that, Ella found herself wandering through the shadowed rows of plots and headstones, eyes skipping from one corner or tree to the very next. She was a fool to think for even a second that this place was not where her enemies easily lied, watching her in wait of feeding time, slaughter. Ella thought of Fred, of how she had broken her promise and ruined his trust all in one evening, whether he would know it or not. She didn't have a choice, though. There was something about this other man, this properly well-to-do seducer, that drew her always nearer, always wanting just one more taste.

By her third round about the graveyard, coming up empty of his presence, she walked to the base of a large oak and rested her head. She breathed in deeply, hating herself over and over again for what she was doing, not only to Frederick, but to herself. How long could she expect John's game to continue? How long before he disappeared from her altogether? Or better yet, at the cost of a free-running supernatural force—how long before she was taken from his world, from both of theirs?

Her thoughts were all silenced when she heard a voice above the pounding of her heart.

"Beloved Ella," he whispered as she moved her eyes to him coming near. His hands were immediately pinned to either side of her face on the tree as he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You saw fit to satisfy my request."

She gulped. "I did."

"And what will you have of it now, dear?"

Ella didn't understand and shrugged.

"What is it you've come to ask of me?"

He purred against her lips, and then the same upon the cusp of her tender ear as her eyes shut like a nervous butterfly's wings.

"What is it you _crave_, Miss Rousseau?"

No words came. She hardly even breathed.

"Have you found the sin of gluttony by way of my attention?"

There was a biting laugh in his voice, as she forced her olive eyes open to him again.

"Do you long for _more_?"

Ella caught a breath. "I long for more than I should."

"And who's to set limits of the quantity you should or should not want of me?"

"I do alone, sir."

He did not move his hands from the tree, or his weight from above hers, but Ella did manage to loosen herself from his gaze and turn beneath his raised arm. She stumbled from the tree to an open plot of dying, midnight grasses and stood idly by an ancient headstone in thought. It was the sound of his proper shoes shuffling in behind her that made her skin crawl in an unstoppable way.

"It's of little concern. He will never know of the hungers you find away from his bed, Eloise."

She knew exactly who he was talking about, and shifted back on her heels to find his hard body closer than she'd imagined, nearly covering hers in the dark.

"I will know," she sighed anxiously. "And that is all. I should not have come here."

Her movement to leave was frozen by his cool fingers ensnaring her wrist and holding her just so against the wind. It felt good. It felt raw and somehow right with him. And she knew he saw the lust bubbling in her green eyes when she glanced back.

"I can fill you in ways men of his nature can only dream." John brought her closer to him, his second arm hooking tenderly about her waist, capturing her body into the trench of his iced heat—an impossibility that drove her wild, breathless. "Let the thoughts wander from the barrier of your mind with me, Ella. They are of no use where I can't hear them, but only imagine." He stroked the pad of his index finger down the bridge of her nose, then over the cleft of her plump lips. "Concede to what I'm offering you. Drink the water from my hand. Take as you must, as I wish you well to do, until your cup runneth over in the purest, the blindest of _ecstasies_…"

The hiss of his words upon her lips and nose were frightening. And for it the same, the sole cause of the heat sliding between her thighs. She avoided the truth as long as she could, to find an outlet with her curiosity instead.

"_Psalms_," Ella whispered teasingly up at him. "You dare to tempt me with the word of God, in a cemetery, in the middle of the _night_?"

John gave a brief laugh. "Whatever will work, darling. Neither Heaven nor Hell knows of what I'm capable of doing to you, giving you. Neither will have me, ever." His true meaning, he could see, was still lost to her. "Their knowledgeable greed will arrive when I am owned by yours."

"Insatiable, as you say I am?"

"No." He stroked the curls from her forehead lovingly. "You are ravenous for other, more delicious things than wisdom."

"And there you are wrong."

She pushed her way from his arms once more and stepped back, but never turned.

"I do wish to know things."

"What things?"

"Fair facts," she exhaled smoothly. "Who are you? Where is it you've come from before now? What do you do other than deliver offers to me in the night? Where does _John_ lend himself to a proper title, the one I can clearly see you hold?"

"You are in want of trivial answers. I promise it will do nothing to solve the ache, pet."

"Yet I still demand them of you. Or I will leave."

"Will you?"

"Yes," she spit back tiredly. "I will not risk my certain happiness with another man, a _good_ man, to give into your mysterious advances. I know who Frederick is. I know nothing of you. How can I trust that at all?"

"Indeed," he smiled with a swift step toward her. "How can you? How have you come here tonight with such suspicions?"

He had her where he wanted her, in the midst of her own declaration. He could see it rising in the tone of her face against the pale moonlight from the trees overhead. He could see the rush of blood beneath her tender skin, boiling, in unconscious want of being purged from pores. He could smell her freshness of a previous bath, one he never wished to have ended. And he could feel every muscle in his body tighten, constrict under the surface of stony flesh, aching to be soothed by her long legs and arms wrapped around his, at last.

"I want to trust you," she murmured beautifully. "I want to be assured of what you toss at my feet. And yes," she added desperately, walking back towards him without stalling, without weakening one bit. "I want to be with _you_, wholly, just as you say. Just as I am with him."

Her delicate chest, rising and falling against his hardened chest, was truthful of her words.

"All I ask for is an equal return of what you know of me already. I ask for the truth," she whimpered softly as her hand reached out to take the carving of his insipid face.

Of all his own talk for filling needs and satisfying emptiness, John had a sudden confirmation in her touch, of why it was he chased after Ella so, why it was he wanted her alone. It could be no one but her. He could take no one at all but her to remedy his loneliness in hide.

"I will give you all of me that you demand the same," Ella promised. "I only want to know that the physical offerings you make will equal all the others, of your heart."

The softness of her hand as it fell from his cheek to the separation of his open shirt and cold chest was something he hadn't anticipated from her. He had thought all along it would be a controlled situation, bringing Ella to his world, the place she still knew nothing of. He was certain it would be with his sole reckoning that she would consent.

But now, he felt he finally had a stronger edge to arrive at, one where she was willing to have him, for him to have her. He only had to grant her request and allow her the truth first, rather than after the burn of her transformation, as he had so planned. He only had to deliver the answers to possess her whole heart, the same way she seemed eager to possess the silent one beneath her hand.

"John?" Her voice was meek, nervous, and he drew his attention back to her eyes. "What have I said out of turn?"

He breathed with a light smirk, tucking an unruly curl behind her ear. "Nothing at all, sweet Eloise. Your mark is narrow and your words are faultless."

"So you'll tell me what I wish to know?"

"I will," he sighed. "But not tonight. Not here in London."

Her brow crossed. "Where will you? When?"

As he stroked the wrinkles from her nervous face, and kissed the warm spot at the back of her right cheek—on the pedestal of her ear—he whispered simply,

"Somewhere soon, my darling."

Then before she knew what had come over the moment, she was left alone, suddenly, as always was the case with him. She was still not spooked by the nature of his comings and goings. She was too curious by it all to be afraid. She was too lost between the lines of ecstasy and a new found ardor for her mystery admirer, to do anything more than smile, touch the place where his lips had burned an icy hole upon her cheek, and turn back through the misty gravestones for Frederick's house again.


	16. Reflection

**February 29****th**** – Adler Street

* * *

**

_Yes, it went well. Yes, I'm feeling better. Yes, my knee seems to want to heal alright. _

Ella had a thousand things to say to him when he asked. She went over each of them as she hurried down the street that ran parallel to the studio. She ruffled her curls and twisted them into a simple bun at the nape of her neck, a black ribbon tied in contrast to the pink tulle skirt and leotard she had put on at Cecelia's earlier. She never had any intention of staying at the studio long enough to practice. She only had the intention of making him think she had done right by her note to him, and no more.

This was why she tried to exhaust herself with sprints between walking. This was why she tried to make herself look as though she had been hard at work training, and not slipping into the darkness of a cemetery with another man.

Her heart pounded as she turned the corner onto Adler Street, nearly an hour after her initial departure. She wasn't sure whether Fred would believe her or not. She wasn't even sure whether she would believe herself long enough to lie once she saw him. The only thing she knew for sure—as she stumbled along the cobblestones with her hands in the pockets of John's borrowed coat, head hung low in agony and gut wrenching from her battle to choose one man over a second—was that she was lost in her heart.

She wasn't sure she could fight herself anymore. She wasn't sure she knew how to make a decision like that. She wasn't sure she knew whether it was the sweet, protective Inspector she wanted or the relentlessly enchanting man in the shadows of night.

_Who should ever be asked to take one for the loss of the other? _she debated. _It's unfair._

She felt she could have given up trying just then, fallen to the street and cried herself to an early, easy death without suffrage of blood-suckers or otherwise. She felt she could have turned back around and kept running in the other direction, for as far as it would take her, until she came to the ocean and collapsed in the sand, in the surf. She would let it carry her away from having to choose. It might have worked. She might have won sanctuary that way. If only she hadn't looked up from her boots in time to see a figure moving in her direction from the end of the small block. She knew who it was the moment she saw his silhouette under the streetlamp.

_Oh God, _she cursed and fell against the brick wall, her breathing staggered and hands trembling._ He's going to the studio to find me. I know he is. Frederick, you care so.  
_

Ella threw away her guilty thoughts of surrender. She stepped away from the wall, hurried around the corner with her head tilted low in the light, avoiding him altogether. She knew he was going to the front door of the studio on the opposite side of the block. So she took the alleyway to the back, where the iron stepladder to Cecelia's second floor balcony awaited her attempt to scale it. Her bare hands hit the icy metal dowels of the ladder as she hoisted herself onto the first step, a practiced soar into the air. Ella scurried quickly to the top. Her boots slipped only twice on the damp iron rods. And once there safely, she vaulted herself over the rail to the balcony like a professional.

"_Please_," she begged with quiet, icy breaths. "Don't break."

Her careful steps, which were light as feathers, light as her, took her to the ridge on the first window of the studio loft. The room glowed with kerosene from her earlier stop. She tugged desperately at the window, breaking the tension of ice and wood, until she managed to raise it and slip through to the warmth of the building. She heard the knocker on the door of the first floor, and knew it was Frederick, in hopes of her responding. But she wouldn't, and she couldn't.

It didn't matter. He knew where the key was hidden in the alcove of a fallen brick in the doorway. She'd shown it to him when he had first begun his investigation of Cecelia's studio, so that he could do his work without her needing to be there in the middle of the night. That assistance was now a curse she lent herself credit for.

She scrambled desperately from one corner to the next, leaping on one foot at a time to remove her boots and replace them with her point-toe flats. She laced the ribbons about her white stockings as quickly as she could. She ran to the music box the moment she heard the door downstairs open, hand on needle, spinning a tune from it that half drowned out the sound of his footsteps. Ella shucked John's coat into a hidden corner of the room, her ears intent on the whisper of his boots pounding the stairs.

And she slid lastly, towards the bar at the long mirror. She had a single moment to spare, in which she craned her leg delicately upon the wooden rail, her pink toe pointed perfectly, arm outstretched to the cascading ceiling of the loft. Her heart beat wildly inside her chest. A few beads of sweat rolled down between her breasts, evidence of a lie well accomplished.

Not half a second later, from around the corner of the open doorway, came Frederick's disheveled, but beautiful face. Her surprised expression was mockery. Her smile was falsified from the terror in her gut, the anger in her thumping heart. But he seemed oblivious to anything other than her steadied practice, and by assumption of the dew on her forehead and chest, her rather difficult exercise. He stepped inside the room, eyed her position with fascination, thrill, and most of all, lust brimming in his russet eyes.

"Frederick. I was just finishing. You didn't need to come."

"I did." He grinned, studying her for a moment longer. "However can ye be comfortable like that?"

She giggled breathlessly as he scratched his chin in awe.

"It is how I'm most comfortable," she replied as she slid her leg down and stood weakly on the floor beside the mirror's reflection.

Then she added sweetly, "Second only to being with you, of course."

Frederick smirked as he walked towards her. "_Oh_. Is that so?"

"You don't believe me?"

"Perhaps I could stand to see some evidence, love."

She wiped the sweat from her chest and face with a nearby cloth. He watched in envy as he removed his hat—envious of the moisture that laid at ease between her delicate breasts, and the tulle of her skirt that was captured between her tired thighs. When staring after her had become too much of a burden, he carefully removed his coat and dropped it to the floor at their feet, then stepped in behind where she was facing the mirror.

Ella watched him with wanton eyes in the glass reflection. She studied the way his arm coiled gently about her tiny waist, squeezing her flesh beneath the attached silk of her leotard. She sighed when his eyes and nose and mouth disappeared into the crook of her left cheek and shoulder. And she moaned when she felt his lips suckling, wet and smooth against the heat of her neck, tasting her fortitude, her need.

"Would you really deny me nourishment before taking what's left of my energy?"

The honeyed sound of her voice made him look up from the curve of her neck and shoulder, where his chin rested, and his dark eyes stared back at her through the mirror's signal.

"A glass of water?" he offered.

"Please."

Frederick's hand slide from her waist as he kissed the top of her head and turned for the sink. Ella remained at the mirror, hands reaching out to grasp the bar as she watched him in the reflection, drawing her regular glass from the sink and filling it in silence. She loosened the black sash tied in a bow around her back, and let it float to the floor behind her. Then she reached for the ebony ribbon in her hair, untying it the same as her dark hair tumbled heavily across her shoulders and back and cheeks. That's when she saw Frederick move towards her again, his arm lowering the glass of water over her head as he hugged her body to his again.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered in her hair. "You take my breath away, Ella."

She gulped the water until it was gone. Her heart beat like mad when she whispered thirstily, "Take mine away too, Fred."

He found her eyes in their reflection once more, this time closer to the mirror where he pressed her into the bar. For an extended moment he did nothing but stare into her eyes, the ones that shook him with uncontrollable grief when they were tear-filled, and when they were heavy and desirous as they were now, sent shockwaves through his every vein. He didn't respond to her request with words. They were unnecessary. Ella understood the suggestion in his glare even before he'd set it into motion.

And perhaps it was that crazed ache she saw in his—the one that told her he would only ever be contented with her in his arms, forever—that made the emptied glass slip from her hand to the wood floor. It cracked into a hundred pieces, but neither of them reduced their stare. Neither of them looked away.

Frederick couldn't help the emptiness in his gut any longer, and he hauled the endless curls from her neck to devour her flesh sweetly. He kissed her and moved his lips in sensual circles that made her eyes flutter closed, and her head fall down to his opposite shoulder in a lull with the music. His hand slid lovingly down the plane of her stomach, meshing the silk with her skin beneath, until he cupped her right breast, and massaged it softly. She mewled as he knew she would, and her legs wavered slightly in the reflection he was analyzing.

It was nothing at all in comparison to the sound she made when his second hand traveled the distance of her skirt, disappearing under the layers of tulle and silk and satin. His fingers found the waistband of her lisle stockings. She knew what he was doing even before it had come crashing into view. Her heart raced and her arm flew behind his head for leverage against the inevitable. Ella released a cry so profoundly desperate, so smooth, from her tongue and lips together, that he swore he could have died a satisfied man just then.

He wove his hand into the confines of the stockings, searching out the moisture, the burn of her core. Her fingers pulled at his hair as he separated the hidden folds and dove through to the slick tunnel that he craved. She was balancing in the cradle of his palm between her thighs, dancing on a whim, mirrored perfectly for him to both see and feel at the same time. Ella arched back into his chest, her bottom grinding against the strain in his pants leg. She wanted so much more than what she was being given, and voiced it openly, words incomprehensible but cries of ecstasy more than enough for him to know. He thrust first one finger, then two together, throughout the cavern of soft walls and seeping honey. He could hardly stand the look on her face.

_"Fred!"_ she whimpered against the fur of his cheek, his ear. "I want...please, _you_…"

Him. He knew what that meant. He could take advantage of that plea.

Ella was breathless when she fell against the mirror beneath his weight, her cheek pressed to the glass alongside her single palm, streaks left as early evidence of the night at hand. Her eyes were closed to the room's light, to his reflection, to everything. But she was drawn to the beauty of her other senses. Her pounding heart, the fumbling of buttons on his vest and tunic, the faint heat of kerosene lanterns, the glide of stockings from her hips, the scratchy hum of _Symphony No. 3_, the zipper of his pants, the musk of his occupation, and lastly, his strong chest, bared to the slope of her back.

She gasped when she felt what lingered beneath her skirt, tented behind, fierce at the ready she had begged for. Before she knew whether to hold onto the bar for safety, or his neck, or attempt to cling like a fly to the crystal glass of the mirror, Frederick was turning her in his arms. He welcomed her face to his, flushed and desperate. He smiled weakly and crushed her mouth with his.

His tongue reached out for hers as she felt him lifting her flats from the floor. One hand cuddled her left breast and the other supported her thigh at his hip. He thrust within her, quickly, the way she'd both wanted and hardly expected. He had her. He had all of her, filled as much as any man ever could, and the way that another had already attempted once that evening. But she gave herself over to Frederick without thoughts of John plaguing her. She cried into the wisps of his boyish curls, against the burr of his distressed groans, her lips pressed to the soft hair of his muttonchops, breathing heavily as he drove back and forth within her. He was buried from hilt to tip, head to toe.

It wasn't anything like how he'd taken her in a handful of times since the night before. It was sweet in a longing sort of way. It was romantic. It was elegant, as he spread her free arm across the mirror—sweating skin glued to glass—and watched the way their fingers tangled together desperately. He embraced her fully, as if he had never known another way. He ground hard, but didn't smother her beyond what was needed. He was a perfect lover, stroke after undeniable stroke. Frederick captured Ella's every bit of attention until all that was left beneath his caress, was a trembling, heaving mess of a young woman, arching to his every plunge as though she'd been making love to him for a century or more.

Somewhere at the crest of release, Ella latched onto his neck more securely, rising and falling against the mirror with his ravenous stride. Through blurred vision, she could see his mouth just beneath hers, half parted to match the slits of his dark eyes. She pressed her lips to his. She breathed in his breath. She tasted the sting of tobacco and sweat. She fondled his mouth with a narrow kiss that gave way to the burst of light before her eyes, and his exactly the same, equally matched.

"Unnghh, _God_—" he gasped into the heat of her mouth. "Ella! I— _I love you_."

She reveled in the sound of it, the confession on his tongue before it tangled with hers. She poured herself out to him completely and felt him satiate her as well, deeply. No cups ran over and no water needed sipping from a palm. He was just as he was and ought to be. His eyes were just as humble and as kind and as protective when he opened them. His hands were just as soft, just as strong where they held her from falling. His chest and the vigor in his shoulder blades where she reached down and smoothed the tightness, was just as right.

He was hers already. She was his. No questions needed answers and no truths needed telling. It was all in that moment. For where her eyes matched his, smiling as they floated down to the floor in a breathless heap, she didn't have to choose or justify one for another. Frederick was the present conqueror of her heart.

But where there is a victor, there must be a dark horse. And where there is lightness of spirit, there must always be a balancing evil, a loathsome attitude hovering close. He was far from sight or mind to the two of them, as they lain crumpled and twisted, laughing and kissing on the wood floor of the studio. They did not know he was there, and they could not have guessed to even look. Yet he was. In the shadow of a balcony window's observation, he was agonized. He seethed. He came to the conclusion of what had to be done to lure his beautiful Eloise back to his arms, indefinitely.

He knew exactly what his heart of stone required now.


	17. Peace Broken

**Devonshire Row – Frederick's House

* * *

**

"I love you here. An' here," he mumbled as he kissed the inside of her left wrist, then the cusp of the same palm. He moved on to new territory slowly, spread out in the middle of the bed as she giggled in a tangle of sheets and the sound of rain on glass.

"I love you here," he kissed the open plane of her throat and neck.

"I love you here," he kissed her elbow

"I love you here," he kissed her navel.

And then he pushed aside more of the linens, raised her leg in the air, expanded to the ceiling, and kissed his way from toes to ankle, ankle to knee, finishing at the flesh of her inner right thigh. "I _especially_ love you 'ere," he teased as he kissed in maddening circles all throughout the soft, warm space. Ella tossed her head back to the mattress and laughed at the tickle of his mustache and tongue. Not until he left her thigh to hover above her entire form again, did she breathe properly.

She touched his cheek, stroking the sideburns that drove her consistently mad with pleasure. "Is there anything you don't love so soon? Tell me."

"No. There is nothing to tell."

"You lie."

He shook his head sternly, a few curls falling in his eyes.

"There's nothing about you that I can't possibly love, or don't already."

Ella smiled as she leaned up to meet his mouth. "You're a swift romantic."

"With you, yes."

She pressed her lips to his and waited for the consummation, the engulfing flames of his to cover her the way they had since the earliest hour of the morning.

From studio floor to street, street to doorstep, doorstep back into his bed, it had been an endless act, never ceasing, save for the occasional rest for sustenance. She wouldn't have it any other way. Frederick said nothing of the case. Ella did not ask. And for the whole of almost ten hours, there was peace beneath the city at their feet. No murder came to his attention. No blood hit the streets and no emergency was rung for. It was the first night, in too many nights of his career that he was able to do as he pleased, with whom he pleased, more than ever anyone before her.

The momentary hope was that the serenity remain just so, which was why Ella shoved on his chest until he was flat on his back again. She straddled him with hugging thighs, her delicate breasts sliding down his body from upper torso to the lowest slant of his hips. Her kisses marked the territory left behind. He sighed with a deep growl of laughter, of longing desperation for where he knew she was headed. He felt a tremor run through his bent right leg as she moved away the tenting sheet on his nether region. Frederick lost control of his heart's beats when Ella took into her small hands, the one thing that she already owned outright. He glanced down the plane of his sweating stomach to see her smiling back at him, massaging the burn.

"My forbidden fruit, you are."

She kissed the head of his agitated shaft and he fell back to the bed, offering her complete control of the situation. She took him greedily between her lips. Nothing was more intense a sensation than the heat of her small mouth or the slide of her tongue along the rigid underside of his length, and he grasped as much of the linen as he could to prove it. Frederick growled low and deep in the back of his throat where it radiated against the sound of rain on the windows of the bedroom.

He welcomed every slight move of her lips, whether up and down or in some way swirling against all that he was, all that she'd made of him—yet again. He bit his lower lip when the need to spill was first recognized, and subconsciously began to arch his hips towards her moving mouth. Ella was able to steady him only for a moment, before a deafening pound on the door of the apartment made his entire body jolt towards her throat, choking her for half a second. She flew back from him, coughing, as the piercing knocks continued at a distance.

"Jesus! _Ella_," Frederick breathed heavily as he sat up, pain stricken all over. He took her face into his hands, easing her fright away. "I'm _so_ sorry. Are ye alright?"

She gulped with a timid nod. "The door. It—"

"_Abberline!"_ Godley's voice from outside the house broke through.

He sighed angrily at the call. He tried to ignore the interrupted burn below, and kissed the corner of Ella's mouth apologetically. He grabbed his discarded shirt from the pillow and handed it to her to put on, then climbed from the bed and threw on his black pants and another shirt. The peace had been splintered, _finally_, and he had never hated anything more. He hurried from the room to answer the door, as Ella lingered slowly, collecting her bearings.

When she had, she wandered from the bedroom, down the hall to where two concerned and bickering voices were at the front door. She saw the same large man, Frederick's best friend Peter. As Godley saw her emerging from the dark hall, he removed his rain soaked bowler hat in a gentlemanly way, nodding. She smiled in weak return and moved behind Frederick, her hands clutching the wrinkled shirt on his back, as she listened to what they were saying.

"How many is it?"

Godley sighed in frustration and wiped the rain from his pale face. "No count, yet. But I'd say no less than a dozen, likely more."

She felt Frederick's shoulder blades tense and she rested her cheek between them.

"What street did ye say?"

"Down o'er on Budge Row."

"Alright. Ella," he turned to her suddenly. "Go an' get dressed. I want ye come t' come with me."

Her eyes widened in surprise and she attempted to respond, but was cut off.

"Frederick," Godley spoke seriously. "No. God, trust me. She doesn't need t' see this."

"Well, I'm not leaving her 'ere alone."

"She won't be," he argued back. "I brought Hawkins an' Rowley to safeguard your place. Miss Rousseau will be fine. Better here than with us."

Ella saw Frederick rolling his eyes as he turned back to her, hands somber but protective as he stroked her face. She noticed too, Godley disappearing through the front door into the rain again, and the two men waiting on the doorstep, murmuring in the darkness of the day outside.

"I have to go sort this all out. I won't be long. I promise. You're alright, yeah?"

She heard him speaking to her, but wasn't focused enough to respond. Not at first.

"Ella," he forced her face and eyes directly to his.

And she looked far into his gaze, shivering at the darkness.

"What?"

"I'll be back soon. You'll be safe in 'ere till I get back. Don't leave the house today._ Please_, promise me this time?"

She swore with a nod, but her mind was wandering as she spoke.

"What's going on? What's happened?"

"I don't know," he said tiredly. "I just don't know yet, love."

Ella could only think of one thing at all, but she didn't bothering voicing what they both suspected. Instead, she fell into the warmth of his embrace when he kissed her, hugged her, and stroked her hair softly. She trusted the words he whispered on her ear, and believed him when he repeated—half a dozen times as he finished dressing—that he would be back soon and that she would be fine. She watched him pull his coat on, his neck tie and hat, but she didn't help this morning. All she could do was stand in the middle of the foyer, the sleeves of his shirt falling beyond her fingertips, and her bad knee trembling with the rainy weather and fear.

He kissed her mouth once more before he flew out of the house into the storm. She closed the door behind him, halfway to locking it when it burst back open.

"Frederick?"

"I forgot something."

"_What_—?"

She was cut mid-yelp by the force of his arms lifting her off the floor, and by his hand on the nape of her neck bringing her mouth to his all over again. Ella couldn't speak beyond the ravenous intensity of his lips and tongue and arms where he squeezed her to his body. He smoothed the worry in her brow and settled the churn of her gut that time. There was nothing to be afraid of with a wordless promise like that. There was nothing to fear but when she knew he would let go again and her bones would grow cold without his warmth.

"I love you, Eloise."

He settled her back down on the floor with the statement and she felt her skin tingle in the best of ways. She had loved him saying that all night, but this time was different. It meant something more when he brushed the curls from her eyes that way and kissed each of her cheeks that way, and certainly when he touched his hand to her beating heart through his shirt that way.

"I love you too," she finally whispered with tears in her eyes. "Be safe out there."

He smiled when her trembling hand covered his on her heart. Then he kissed her neck.

"_I__ promise_."


	18. The Count

**Budge Row, Cheapside – **_11 am

* * *

_

He watched the madness for hours, from creation to core. He had the luxury of witnessing for a change, the communal drama that followed his nightly activities. And this event was one he was glad to have enacted the evening before London's stormiest, darkest day. He could stand to be here now. He could hover above the shouting and flashbulbs and threatening locals and abusive constables. He could revel in the knowledge that the lead man who arrived on scene minutes later—the one with the timid expression and dangerous eyes beneath his bowler—would be nowhere but there, on that scrap of alleyway pavement, for the rest of the day and well into the night.

"Count is ten," he heard one young officer call out in the rain.

"Eleven," another added.

And somewhere distantly, on the opposing block's corner, there was the argumentative holler of, "Best make it thirteen!"

This made him smile greedily, knowing better than any of them, that they were still five missing figures off the mark. It would take them some time to find the others. There would be hours upon endless hours of paperwork, body shuffling, case reports and coroner's observations. It would not slow down until his second act was already fruitfully under way. And it would not end, if it ever did, until his third act was completed. It would not end for Chief Inspector Abberline, until the woman he loved had given herself over wholly to another,_ to him_.

Nothing—no mortal promises or kisses or touches—could stop him from prevailing now.


	19. Fur Elise

**Frederick's House – **_3 pm_**

* * *

**

Pacing was good. Pacing was what would keep her on the edge enough to defend herself if need be. Pacing was what would keep the demons at bay and the threat looming, rather than falling upon her. Pacing felt nearly as good as being safe in Fred's arms.

Ella wandered throughout the rooms for hours after his departure. But unlike the afternoon prior, she didn't touch anything. She didn't dust or clean or tweak a single item in his house. She only remained idly shuffling in his long shirt, watching her toes against the hard wood and stone tile. She heard her ankles crack at intervals and felt her knee twitch in pain, in agony of wanting to be somewhere else, dancing rather than fighting off potential evil. She twisted long curls around her finger, one by one, always releasing them to bounce back into place. She watched the clock. She listened to it taunting her, second by blood pumping second, tick by ambiguous tick. It was a horrid sound; nearly as troublesome as the drip of the sink faucet, the tub, and the whistle of the teapot.

Yet it was that alone that saved her.

She stood at the kitchen counter, fingers tapping on the wooden surface as she poured tea into a mug. Her eyes averted to the front window of the apartment. She could see a Constable—one of the two men—pacing just as she was, determinedly, in protection mode from one end of the front walk to the next. He paused for a moment and stared in through the rainy window at her, nodding with a gentle tip of his hat and a smile. At that, the steaming liquid overflowed from the cup when she wasn't paying attention, and it burned her fingertips. She whimpered. And while she fought the pain and cleaned the mess from the counter, a sound from the bedroom overtook her senses.

It was a song, the sound of a piano playing _Fur Elise_.

Dropping her spoon into the cup, Ella turned back and leaned against the counter, urging safety into her heart that refused to come. She didn't breathe a word. She didn't call for help outside. She simply stood, listening, watching for a sign that it was unreal, a daydream only perhaps. But when the music continued to fill the rooms of the house and the steam from the tea behind her left moisture through Frederick's shirt on her back, she stepped away, towards the hall. She followed the music, the romantic melody that seemed to do nothing but lure her closer.

As she arrived at the bedroom door, she peered in through the crack first, breathing quietly as the tinkling of piano keys was solidified but not found out. She could only see a mass of wrinkled sheets on the bed from where she and Frederick had lain all night. She could only see the flickering of a single candle on the bedside table in the midst of a stormy day's darkness. She pushed the door open further with her toes, and felt her heart beat faster as the music picked up its tempo. The view deepened. She remembered then that there was no piano in Frederick's room, that he didn't have one at all.

And then suddenly felt herself held in place at the doorway by a hand on her hip. The air in her throat was lodged but the scent around her wasn't threatening at all. It was pepper and rain and an aroma that lust left upon a man in need.

A rich whisper fell to her ear. "Rid his shirt for mine now, Eloise."

She felt a second hand arrive at her left side, and slowly, sensually, they raised the linen of Frederick's old shirt off her skin. She couldn't stop him. She couldn't think to walk into the bedroom and lock the door against his advances. She couldn't think of anything but the surrealistic music in her head and his breath on her neck being replaced by the hunger of teeth, his teeth, the ones she'd always loved in the same spot.

The air around her became a haze of light and darkness as she felt her eyes closing and her back arching into the stone strength of his body, her heated flesh touching the same imminent cold of his. It was seconds that came and went in which Ella knew she falling from gravity, into his arms. But she couldn't stop it. She couldn't do anything at all except welcome the peace that he had created, and smile into the pillow of his chest.


	20. Unsolved

**Budge Row, Cheapside – **_5 pm_**

* * *

**

"It's out o' control, for fuck's sake. You know that don't you?"

There was no response from Frederick. He could do little more than salvage what was left of his sanity. He stood on the broken bricks of the street's corner, hand gripping a lamppost, less for balance and more to chain down his frustration, to keep from hitting someone undeserving. The madness refused to leave, even six hours into the bowels of investigation. It was everywhere all around him. Puddles of blood tainted rainwater, the limp arms and legs and faces of stonewashed bodies. He heard Godley mumbling continuously behind him, but didn't say a word in agreement or argument. He didn't have the energy.

"Ghastly bastards doing this. It's got to be figured out. No more bodies, Abberline. This is it, now." His robust friend growled with a sigh as he shuffled away. "_Eighteen people eaten alive for no bloody reason_…" was the last he heard from him.

He dismissed the truth for uncertainty. Frederick stood just as he was, his eyes shifting between images of Constables carrying bodies through the rain, civilians crying, shouting at and fighting one another. He glanced down and noticed two vibrant drops of blood straining his boot toes, and waited until a single raindrop cleared them both, before shaking it over the gutter. He listened to the sound of the clouds crashing together over the city, tormenting him. And then he thought of two necessities, one right after the other.

Ella came first, as she ought to have. He shut his eyes beneath the rim of his soaked hat, fingers ensnared more surely on the iron post as he tried to envisage her safety, the one Peter swore on all afternoon. He prayed—which he rarely did—that she was still in the house, curled beneath the warmth of the sheets, protected from the storm of murder striking the roads outside.

Then he thought of what he needed to do for himself, for the case. Although he'd promised her he would return soon, he had been misled by the case and he spoke too early. Going home wasn't a possibility now. He had to find a killer before night arrived and the city was besieged all over again. He had to conjure what he could, where he could, and take care of his commission once and for all.

Sidelong, as he raised his head, Frederick noticed one of the younger officers coming towards him. He knew then what had to be done.

The boy stepped in with his inquiry. "Inspector. What is it you want us to—?"

But he was cut by Abberline's strong grip, when it moved from the lamppost to his shoulder. He gasped and Frederick glared at him from under his hat. "Never mind it. I need ye to do something else more important for me, Quincy."

"Sir?"

"My home is on Devonshire Row, 690. I need you to go there an' check on a girl."

The boy, who was no more aged than Ella herself, stared intently at him but was withdrawn, spirit damaged from the day's activity.

"Sergeant Godley said that Hawkins' was watching someone there. Why do I—?"

"_Because_," he growled with a stronger grasp. "I'm telling ye to."

The boy shuddered with nod. "Yes, sir."

"Go on then," he shoved him from his hand. "An' once you've spoken to her, come and find me on the East End, at Worley."

It was another nod of confusion that preceded the backwards tumble of the boy down the slick streets towards Bishopsgate. He hurried in the same way that Frederick himself hurried into a waiting coach nearby. He heard Godley shout something to him from the other end of the block, but he was already inside—door shut and wheel's rolling with damp horse's hooves—when his friend's warning struck his ear. He would never solve the case standing on that corner, despite what the Sergeant thought. This sort of enemy, this sort of lunacy, required scrutiny of an equal extreme.

And he'd always known just where to get it.


	21. The Dear Mistress

**Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire – **_7 pm_**

* * *

**

Where she was drifting, the world was delicious, at the sheerest of peace.

Ella had become one with her clouded bed, melted deep into the silks and satins of the air around her, the arms that held her in her dreams. She smiled into the pillow of her wrist and then yawned as she woke. The brightness was removed and candlelit shadows prevailed. The room—when she realized she was in one and not in the sky—was warm and grand, though in too many ways lonely. She sat up slowly, craning her neck and back against the comfortable stiffness, and stretching her legs for miles beneath the gold embroidered blankets. Her eyes fluttered tiredly and her yawning persisted, even as she slid from the massive bed and began to step around the ornate chamber.

He wasn't there, the man she'd been dreaming about. The doors were shut and the thick curtains drawn on a dozen or more floor-to-ceiling windows. She walked to one and pulled back the drapes. The view was one she'd not expected, of a darkening English countryside rather than a bustling city. She breathed in surprise, eyes wide and hand sliding from the curtain when she heard the familiar tinkling of piano keys playing _Fur Elise_ again at a distance. Ella turned back on her heels, only then realizing the change of wardrobe she'd had, from Frederick's wrinkled shirt to a form fitting, crème lace chemise. She stopped mid-step in the giant golden room, touching the fabric at her navel, before looking up to find a replacement awaiting her.

Lain across the settee at the end of the bed, was a dress. And really more than a dress, it was a gown, a work of art if ever she'd seen one. Her mouth was agape as she tiptoed closer, hand outstretched as she knelt before it. Against the orange candlelight of the room, the color was the richest of wines, embroidered with as much detail as the chair it sat upon. The ebony beading matched the satin ribbon around its waist where she ran her hand in awe. There was no invitation for her to claim it, but the point was as good as there, a blatant but charming one. Ella smiled brightly and lifted the dress from the chair, holding it to her front.

_It's too beautiful to wear, _she thought with a sigh.

On the dresser, folded silk bloomers, a petticoat, corset and matching gloves, all lay in wait, all her exact size.

_How could he have known…?_

The bawdy thought brought more smiles to her face as she hurried to dress in what she could, before accepting the assistance of a maid from the hall. The woman hardly said three words to Ella, but even with a somber expression, she did wonders with corset ties and the satin buttons of the gown's bodice and lastly her hair. It was a perched web of tangled chocolate curls on top of her head, held together seamlessly with a single scarlet ribbon.

Ella stared at herself in the mirror once the woman left the room again. She was hardly able to breathe at the bone tightness of her bodice. She touched the accentuated spill of her breasts at the slope of the dress, and gasped with a small laugh. It was surreal. It was as if she had returned to Paris suddenly, the center of attention in a room of wanting, mostly married men, all of them complimenting her dancing to avoid speaking out on her sinfully delicate shape. The memory hurt, so she pushed it away and turned from the mirror to avoid her own beauty.

The music had changed two dozen times when she finally reached the door of the room and exited to the equally candlelit hall. She hadn't seen so many candles before. She wondered if he had never heard of incandescent lighting. Ella was fascinated by the hanging cloth murals of ancient years, the cherry oak of the walls as she walked between them, the skirts of her dress clutched safely in two gloved hands. She wandered, aimlessly, around corners, down stairwells and through archways, following the sound of the piano.

But when she arrived at the room where the grand, forest black instrument sat, she found the space silent of tune and empty of the man in question. Her heart skipped a beat in fear.

She turned about the room in nervous study of an endless collection of clocks. They began at one end of the room, and continued on until she had reached the next corner, or the following side. All of them ticked, some faster than others, some minutes ahead or behind. Some were old, some newer, large, small, hanging or standing. After minutes of spinning in their midst, confused and alone, Ella began to notice their ticking take on a lyrical form. They were music, with or without the piano, and she smiled in the palm of her satin glove at the sound, never once aware of the stalking company in the hollow of the room.

Not until she felt a sudden breeze, an impossible gust sweep her half exposed back, did Ella still herself. A hand was crawling along the lower waistline of her dress from behind, fingers woven through the ebony bow, and toying with each tiny button of her bodice. She forced herself to breathe. She moved her hand from her mouth and touched her bound stomach. She planted her heels in the rug, trying to remain as calm as possible when she felt the cool air replaced by something even cooler; a kiss on the nape of her neck. Her fingers dug into the beading and silk as she felt him pull her closer, deeper into his embrace, which was hardly there at all. It was a whisper of a cuddle.

"_My dear Mistress has a heart_," he hummed poetically in her ear. "_Soft as those kind looks she gave me._" Ella turned in his arms, staring into his endless eyes. "_When with love's resistless art, and her eyes, she did enslave me. But her constancy's so weak, she's so wild and apt to wander, that—_" John paused to touch her cheek, his fingertips softly crawling along the bone and her powdered pores. "_My jealous heart would break, should we live one day asunder."_

His arm was strong around her waist and his chest hard against hers, pressing for the warmth she seemed to always hold over him like an untouchable gift. He was ice cold, but she couldn't imagine a more comfortable place in that moment. She still could not properly explain why that was, why it was she felt so at ease with him, a stranger, an unknown force, and a blisteringly cold one at that. The chill seemed to run the length of her spine, preventing her from falling away. She was frozen in the midst of his blackened stare, and beneath the hover of his stone lips as he continued with the sweet utterance.

"_Melting joys about her move, killing pleasures, wounding bliss." _Ella moved her hand to his cheek, melting the cold with the heat of her palm and watching his eyes close, wholly contented at the touch. _"She can dress her eyes in love, and her lips can arm with kisses." _Their mouths did not tangle the way she had hoped, not then. It was a simple whisper of his lips across hers that brought him to conclude, _"Angels listen when she speaks, she's my delight, all mankind's wonder. But my jealous heart would break, should we live one day asunder..."_

Before she knew what had come over the moment, her eyes were open to nothing but the glinting tick of a million and one clocks. He was gone from her warmth, her arms, her whole touch, though not far. Ella shifted around carefully, the column of her spine suddenly weak without him and her legs wobbling beneath the heavy skirts of her dress. He was at a faraway window, turned from her, his hand pressed to the glass and his slender body hunched as if he were angry. She felt her stomach constrict. Her heart seemed to tumble inside of her chest, all set in by nerves.

"John?" she whispered meekly.

He did not move, or move to speak at first.

"I've done something wrong."

Ella watched his hand slide from the dark glass, leaving no streak or cloudy imprint from the February cold. It was impossible.

"Tell me."

"It is of little consequence." He turned back to find her eyes, her coming form, and he walked from the window to meet her before she could him. His hand went immediately to her face, brushing away a loose curl. "You are what you are, sweet Ella. And I am what I am. That is all, a means to an end. Though I should like to end it," he grumbled.

"You should like to end what?" she asked softly, her hand pressed to his chest.

John's eyes wavered for a moment longer before settling inside the forest of hers. When he was hidden in the midst of it, far too gone to remove himself properly, he lifted her hand from his chest and brought it to his mouth. His icy lips touched the pulsing center of her palm and he kissed it, in study of the way her eyelashes fluttered and her cheeks brightened to a sated pink. He watched the life boil inside of her, jealous and yet so transfixed, that he could have easily stayed there in that moment of ticking clocks forever.

"I should like to end your famine," he said, changing the subject teasingly.

Ella smiled as she felt her feet hit the floor again and her heart slow.

"Come with me, my darling."

He tucked her arm safely in his and carried her through the room on what Ella could have easily sworn was a cloud, one she only felt when she was with him. In fact, she was so tightly woven into his presence, that she hardly thought twice of his effort to move her past the grand dining room of the estate. He continued to walk, beyond a dozen more rooms, deep into the farthest corners of the house, where he eventually stopped at a doorway that seemed to be long since abandoned by regular company. John opened it and led her through to the music of another clock and candle assembly. This one was less threatening, softer in nature and light.

Ella swept the train of her gown inside the door and stood idly by, looking from one corner of the room to the next. She saw a small table, immaculately set with roasted duck and all necessary vegetables, sauces, and wines. Then centered at the opposite wall, was a towering bed. Her eyes were fierce upon the dark silken linens when she heard the click of the door's lock and jumped in her skin with a tiny gasp. John smirked at the effect and moved to her, one hand on the buttons of her dress as he led her towards a chair, a glass of wine to match and soothe her.

"Thank you," she gulped.

But before she could take the glass from his hand, she noticed his mouth falling down to where her lips were tucked away nervously. He found them before she could protest—knowing she wouldn't either way—and he kissed her roughly, the way she had wanted it all along. His lips were cold, but lukewarm once they were tangled with hers, and his chilled tongue flicked at the parting of her mouth, but never begged further entrance. He pulled away with a wicked smile on his face and a hovering glare that she knew was stirring the heat between her legs.

"Eat," he murmured. "Then I'll show you what I've brought you this distance for."

"Answers to my questions, I presume."

With a sigh, he flew to a chair beside her and began piling food onto her plate—but never his.

"You have the intention of enlightening me on who_ you _are."

"Indeed."

"And are you trust so little my ability to dine and interrogate at the same time?"

John slowed his movement of platters and dishing forks, to shift his eyes to hers, where he found her smiling, taunting him. His entire body went rigid with pleasure at the sight.

"Witty Eloise," he replied.

And she fought back, the way he adored. "Yes, witty and desperately curious."

"I prefer you desperate."

"Am I to be surprised?"

He bit back a laugh and shook his head.

"Not surprised. Merely enlightened, as you say."

"Very well then," Ella returned as she lifted a bit of the duck onto a fork. "I am at odds with understanding your need for so many clocks. Care to explain that?"

His smile was twisted as he leaned into his chair, slumped, with hands crossed on his lap, eyes intent on nothing more than the roasted meat being devoured by her hungry lips, the way he wanted to be, under her careful path.

"I care, yes. And yet, I keep them as a reminder of their terrible point. I detest their reasoning. To keep time which only a majority of men can even feel to take advantage of."

Ella was confused, as he knew she had been from the start. It was a welcomed confusion though, for each of them.

"A broken clock is a comfort," he added. "For how magnificent a thing to not be burdened by a single tick between lost breaths. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes. I suppose I would."

"Without time's limitation, a person can go on forever as they choose. They can expand beyond nature's walls. They can endlessly entertain themselves."

A tiny frown came to Ella's mouth as she turned her eyes to his and swallowed food.

"Eternity would be a lonely gift, would it not?"

Relief washed over John then, the kind he had silently pleaded for. She understood what he did. She saw the bane of sacrifice even before it was voiced. And so he reached out to her, his hands sliding along the silk of her gown, lightly claiming her legs for his fingers hold. His face came nearer as she tried to settle her glass of wine on the table. His body was everywhere again, all of a sudden, without warning or need for it. Ella was accepting of whatever he was willing to reveal, or do to her then.

"Eternity is only a lonely prize, when man is left to suffer it alone."

"Yes," she accepted quietly under his touch. "And is there no solution to save such a man?"

He smiled. "There is, pet. Believe me. There is."

Ella was lost, rightfully so. She was lost in his breathless breath and his unwavering hold upon her body. She was lost in the things he was speaking about, the understatements to his claims and the hidden meanings to his obvious intentions. She was so far beyond the realm of knowing what was real and what was not in that moment, that she also found herself silently accepting her true feelings for the man before her. She felt her heart aching with something much stronger than all previous desires, something that was equal and yet strangely dissimilar to what she'd offered Frederick only just that morning.

Her love.

It hadn't been possible with John, she had sworn it. He was too tempting to be her heart's weakness, only her hunger. He was too uncertain, mysterious, a glowing sort of energy, otherworldly perhaps, but in no way stable enough to be what she had always thought she wanted of a true match. And yet there he hovered, lips inches away and still so far, his eyes burning her skin with ice rather than heat, his hands caressing her flaming flesh beneath the silk of her dress, and all of it coming together as one conclusion.

Ella was in love, so suddenly, with two men.

And as breathless as she was, she managed to ask, "Will you show me now, what you wish to?"

"Aren't you hungry at all?"

"_Yes_," she sighed as she dropped her wine glass to the table. "But not for this."

"Well." John chuckled hungrily and brushed his nose over hers. "Let us begin nourishing your curious mind properly then, Miss Rousseau."

* * *

(Poem - _"My Dear Mistress Has a Heart"_ by: **John Wilmot**)


	22. Opium Clouds

**Worley Street, East End** – _8 pm_

* * *

Where no one and nothing could interrupt his mind's inner waves, they crashed together through a haze of shadows and clouds and mist. It was an erupting pound on the walls of his head, a shattering ache that came only at the height of profound knowledge. That was what Abberline was reveling in. He too often forgot how magnetic a sensation it was. And yet, he too quickly let himself get locked back inside of the madness of its power as well.

While his body was still as stone, his intellect wandered freely down the alleyways of London, trampling over fallen men, and shoving through the excess of beaten, bruised, and bleeding women. He could hear lustful moans and excruciating yelps of forced passion. He could see thick hands upon abused thighs, fingers sliding through lips and tightened legs, arched backs and their dirtied complement of frontal thrusts.

He saw too much and not enough, not quite what he needed. But he moved on through the nightmare of telepathy and future telling. Frederick let the demons carry him away from those grime and semen ridden cobblestones, to where the streets became dusty paths, and the buildings transformed to hills and trees. It was the countryside under sheer moonlight, the way he remembered it as a child. This wasn't the Dorset coast, though. This was somewhere else entirely, somewhere more secluded, more immortally serene. He drifted above the blue grasses and silver lined pond, flying across the acreage towards a large estate. He didn't know it at first. He couldn't place its origin at all, but that wasn't what mattered.

There was a sound somewhere very distant in his mind. It was a cry. He followed it for reasons he was unsure of, and crawled through the walls of the estate as though they were made of nothing but air, same as him. He let his feet shift and patter among the dark and empty rooms, hallways, of a place he didn't know; a place he all too suddenly didn't like. It took too long to arrive at the source of the noise, and when he did, when he saw the sight that matched the moaning and grunting, the chafing sound of sheets and the squeaking of worn wood—he wished he could have turned back and ignored his conclusion, the one he'd waited weeks to arrive at.

It was the slight of a tiny hand crawling around the strong, moonlit form of a man that caught his every attention. Then it was the bend of a similarly delicate knee, a bruised knee, around the waist of the man. It was a slide of scarlet silk and ebony lace down the palate of a honey sweet thigh, one he knew. It was a mew he loved for himself, a passionate whimper of a name that wasn't his own, but _"John,"_ followed by a scratch of that small hand's nails into the flesh beneath a jutting shoulder blade. It was the manic thrusting of that man—that out of place societal giant, that lying poet from the street corner in Cheapside, a _John Wilmot_—into the disguised woman's widened legs that made his heart explode from the inside out.

And in the end, amid the pain of seeing more than he ever wanted to again, the thing that saved him, was the image of that man's open mouthed gnaw of a half hidden neck, of his Ella's neck. He heard himself gasp internally. He felt himself lunge forward to stop the man, to stop the moment in its deepening procession. But instead of reaching the two moving, satiated bodies, he realized he was leaping out of his own skin, back towards reality and a dimly lit corner of a smoke filled underground.

The emerald dust was carried away from his eyes as he sat up on the narrow bed, gasping, hand over his heart to keep it from escaping. His brow was crossed dangerously. His legs were stronger than they'd ever been in that position before, and his eyes, when he lifted them to the cloudy room of his own loneliness and remedial bargaining, were endless, crazed, and above all else, wide with his own renewed will to protect. Ella was in the back of his every thought, her thighs and hands and neck beneath the weight of another man, another being entirely.

He forced himself from the bed, trampled out of the room and back up the shadowed stairwell of dust and sewage. He moved to the street corner of drunks and whores and obsessive fiends just like him. He leaned breathlessly against a streetlamp post, and stared at his boots for a moment, collecting his thoughts and rummaging his mind for a plan. He had to get to Ella, back to his home, to shelter her against the advance of what she would eventually succumb to if he didn't. He had to begin right then, to prevent the inevitable. And certainly he would have, if something else hadn't stopped him mid-step, mid-run.

"Inspector Abberline!"

With angry eyes and a weary head, he glanced over his shoulder at the boy he'd sent to his home all of three hours ago.

"Sir," he heaved tiredly as he landed near him on the corner. "I've looked everywhere for you, by way of an hour."

"Quincy. I'm going to her now. It's alright."

"No," he grabbed Abberline's coat sleeve, heaving desperately. "It's not, sir."

"What do ye mean? She's there, yeah?"

"No. That's what I've needed to find you for, Inspector. Miss Rousseau isn't there. She's gone from your home."

Frederick's eyes ignited, his breath grew ragged, and his hands drew to sudden fists.

"I don't know where she's gone off to. Hawkins' and Rowley never saw her leave."

Without warning, he shoved the young boy to the wall of the building, releasing what was left of the evils in his mind onto the innocent officer. Frederick held him by his collar; his own inebriated weight pressed angrily as Isaiah's breath disappeared in fear.

"Did they see a man?" he growled with a harsher grip. "Did any o' you bloody cunts see a man go in there?"

Quincy shook his head nervously and Abberline realized the harm he was doing. He released the boy and watched as he slumped to the ground in exhaustion. He turned away as though nothing had happened, and hurdled to the end of the street in desperation.

There was an unattended stagecoach—as if by some higher grace—and he spared no second or third thoughts before loosening the lines around the nearest horse's neck. It whinnied anxiously when he tugged free the brace of the coach reins, and stomped its hooves when Frederick climbed the coach's front wheel to leap onto its bared back. The black horse was strong and fast and took off with no more than a gentle kick of his boot heel in the left side of its belly.

He heard somewhere, the driver shouting angrily, stumbling out of a pub at the corner. But he didn't stop for anything. He was too far gone in his mind, where everything was happening without him there to put an end to it. He cared little for the trivial matters of inner London now.

He had to find Ella. And in turn, find the demon threatening not only the city, but his unconditional love. That was the one one thing he swore wasn't going to be taken from him again.


	23. Truth

**Oxfordshire, England – **_9 pm

* * *

_

Darkness prevailed where she lingered, gloved hands clasped to her eyes, spinning around in slow circles. The room was large, for it echoed whenever she called his name, and whenever he responded. Yet he refused to let her see any truths. He refused to let her bear witness to a single thing until he was readied. So she spun around in the dry heat of the candlelit haven, breathing in deeply whenever she heard another shuffle of something behind her, or another tick of another lonely clock in the blackness.

"How am I to learn or see anything of worth in utter blindness?"

She heard John laugh and finally step in behind her.

"There are worse senses to be without." He drew her hands down from her eyes as she shivered. "Your voice for example. What a lonely world it would be without such a sound."

Ella smiled and slowly turned in his arms, expecting what she ought to have, the same as before. Instead, she was awarded with a sight that nearly sent her to the floor in silent hysterics. She heard him add, _'Though, a universe without your eyes would be equally as depressing,'_ but it hardly registered. Said eyes had used up all of their focus as they cascaded from one corner of his form to the next, one limb, one thread and button and strange curl of hair to the next. She wasn't sure she was seeing him anymore. She wasn't sure it was anything more than a figment.

"Why are you—" she caught herself, a glove covering her mouth, preventing a worse gasp. She stared into his eyes, the ones alight with patience beneath the brim of a large hat, between the black curls of a hideous wig, and doused with chalks and pastes of unbefitting color.

"John," she finally managed. "What is this?"

He stood proudly. "The foundation of your questioning, Eloise."

"_This_? But you look as though you've raided King Charles' forgotten estate."

"Ha," he teased back. "That pompous sot never had an eye for fashion like I did."

Lost by his meaning, Ella furrowed her brow as she reached out to lift away the hat that half hid his face in the dark. He smiled and the candles illuminated the wig and his painted eyes and lips. She wove her fingers through the long spindles of black curls where they flowed down his cheeks and shoulders and upper arms. The coat he wore was woven of the finest gold thread, and its buttons glinted in the orange glow of candlelight. He wore breeches to his knees where a mangy old pair of boots gave him staggering height in comparison to her. Ella's eyes moved slowly upwards, to the openness of his chest under a white tunic and silk necktie, where she pressed her hand softly and found his dark gaze upon her.

"I'm lost in your intention for wearing these clothes."

"But you wish to know, yes?"

She nodded solemnly and rested her cheek in his palm as he cradled her face.

"And you promise not to run, should you stumble upon answers you hadn't imagined."

"I promise," she agreed nervously. "Tell me what purpose all of this serves."

"It serves none, _anymore_. But it did once. Two hundred years ago, now."

He could hear her gulp and could see the blood draining slowly from her face to her neck, then further to her heaving breasts. It had him unwound.

"This is who I _was_. You solicited fact regarding my previous walks of life, and here it is. Your truth." He stepped away from her and held his arms out in show of his entire form. "This is John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, satirical fool and drunken bard."

She wanted to laugh, but feared of what might come of it. She was sure he couldn't be serious.

"That's not at all possible," Ella returned gently. "Such a man died of his own self-abuses far beyond your years. Though, the costume is excellent."

"I trick you not. This is the truth you asked for."

She shook her head with a small grin. "You expect me to believe that you are a seventeenth century poet and Earl to England. And what, come back to life at that?"

"No. One cannot come back to life without having properly left it in the first place."

"And you mean to tell me that you, _John Wilmot_, did not?"

"Yes," he demanded. "This is no joke, Ella."

Her giggling could not be held back and she indulged. Without warning, he reached out and grabbed her arms harshly, shoving her against the nearest wall of the room beneath his weight. He had no intention of hurting her, only of making her see. But the frightened look in her eyes replaced the humor and she trembled under his touch, the way he'd feared most to happen.

"I'm sorry," she whispered with a shaking lip and watery eyes. "I shouldn't have laughed. I did ask for answers. I only hoped they would be more convincing."

His hands grew softer on her arms and he held her the way he wanted, the only way, tenderly. She was the most precious thing the world had to offer him. John brushed a few loose curls from her eyes and touched his cool lips to her forehead. He mumbled as her eyes fluttered closed.

"I am struggling to convince you of what I am, what varies between our hearts."

"What varies?"

"A handful of things you've overlooked all this time."

"I don't understand."

John moved back to look upon her confused face, watching as her eyes opened tiredly and found his.

"What else have I not seen accurately?"

"Everything surrounding you now, has been missed."

He took one of her hands and pressed it to his open shirt, to his unmoving heart. Then he unfurled his upper lip and revealed the sharpness of teeth that transformed from their usual bluntness. Ella's eyes widened, finally open to the truth, and her breath deepened as she struggled beneath his weight.

"You see," he added, pinning her safely to the wall and ignoring her fight to be free. "You've underestimated the power of love, of your heart, to choose what it wants based upon nature and not fact. Ask and you shall receive. Though perhaps you won't like."

"_Please_," she whimpered with tears filling her eyes. "Please, don't hurt me!"

"Never," John assured in a serious tone. "I will _never _hurt you."

"Yet you have me trapped here, seduced. It was you. The bodies, _Cecelia. _You're a v—"

Something stopped her from saying it. Something stronger than her fear stopped her.

"A vampire," he hissed.

It was enough to make her muscles jump into some sort of natural defense mechanism. It was enough to make Ella shove her way from his strength, escape his embrace and lift her skirts as she ran through the room to the opposite door, which was unlocked. She pulled it open and John watched her, conflicted but determined to not make the sudden move that he knew his body wanted to. His mind wanted something else, his still heart too. So he gave her leave to disappear from his sight, and he listened to every clatter of her heels as she hurried through the halls, away from him. He was willing to let her go. He was willing to starve on nothing but loneliness for the rest of eternity, if only because he loved her that much, to allow her the choice.

But it was the moment he had lifted one of the wine glasses from the dinner table of the room, and raised it above his head to throw against the wall, that he heard a different sound. It was silence. There had been no slamming doors, or shouts or carriage wheels on gravel and dirt. There was only that silence, and in the middle of it, somewhere distant but still close enough to feel, he heard sadness. With his unnatural sense of hearing, he heard tears hitting the wood floor. It was the sound that carried him quickly through the space of the second floor rooms, along jetting, candlelit hallways and down the back corridor to the parlor. Ella's spurting breaths and sobs, blended with the charmed piano keys and endless ticking of clocks, was madness in his mind. The most beautiful madness he'd ever known.

He found her, crumpled on the last step beneath a single flickering candle perched on the wall, and he fell to her feet. She knew he was there. She knew she wasn't afraid of him being there either. That was the only thing that scared her—the impossibility of not being timid, but instead feeling as part of a spell, a wondrous enchantment.

"I can't go," she spoke through the tears without raising her head. "I can't leave you. Why can I not leave you?"

He felt his iced exterior melt at her words, and reached out to take her wet face in his hands, soothing her until she looked into his eyes.

"The clocks," she mumbled in agony. "The clocks will keep going forever. And you—" Ella pressed her shaking hand to his cool face. "You'll always go with them, all alone. Everyone you know has died, and died again and again. And here you are still."

His eyes grew somber as he moved in closer to her on the step. His strong arms ensnared her trembling body. John kissed her head as she clung to his shirt and cried deeply.

"I don't want you to be alone."

"I could hope to hear nothing more," he whispered in her hair. "But I won't force you to rescue me of loneliness. I won't harm you to fill the emptiness of my world, Ella. I can't seem to do that to you, darling. Not anymore."

She lifted her face, her warm breath intoxicating him, tightening his every bone and fiber of skin. She looked at him through bleary vision, her olive eyes wet with honesty, with truth sought. And then she whispered the only thing he'd been waiting two centuries to hear, the words that rescued him, without force and by her own terms.

"I want to be with you. I love you, John." Ella touched his cheek and he shut his eyes at the impossible heat of it, the earnest pledge. "If forever is what you require of me, then so be it."

"And you realize what you're consenting to. Do you not?"

"I do."

His black eyes opened and he found the spark of light amid the forest darkness of hers. Ella was an inch from his face, her lips trembling but moving towards his when she said, "I'm yours if you'll have me—ticking clocks, human sacrifice and all."

Her sweet, hypnotizing kiss was promise enough for a lifetime.


	24. Direction

**Oxford countryside – **_10 pm_**

* * *

**

He'd stormed Hyde Park, a man with a vengeance for death on his tongue. The high societal strollers of night had given him little to nothing to go on, save for a single house number and street name in St. James Square, opposite the palace. Frederick had pounded on the door until the evening crowd of servers answered. And when they had refused to lend even him, a detective of the city, the location of their Lord and master, he had nearly beaten it out of the elderly doorman.

"He took the young lady to the country, Sir."

The man had given up with fear in his gray eyes, pinned to a wall beneath Fred's angry hands no differently than young Quincy had been.

"Where in the country?" he snarled.

The man hesitated and looked off at the two young maids before answering with a shaking bottom lip.

"To Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire, Inspector."

Despite not having recognized it in his nightmares, he knew it now. He needed no accompaniment to find the location. It was one he'd traveled through with family in his youth, and one he could visibly see looming in his mind, taunting him with stark imagery for the whole of his journey. Few breaks were made in his storming of the evening valleys and quiet hills in the English countryside. The horse grew tired at regular intervals, but was strong enough to carry him quickly through Oxford County.

The only true battle was within his head, where he was left to bear witness to the same reoccurring details of Ella's bared thighs, the muscles in Rochester's back whenever he made advances toward the space provided to him between those same sweet legs, and the sounds of their interlocked passion. He didn't know what to make of any of it. He didn't know whether to believe it was the hypnotism of this man upon his Ella, or whether she had indeed offered herself to this man, this demon force.

There were no answers but those he sought as he rode on desperately through the night. He kept hearing two contrasting pleas that threatened his sanity. _'I love you,' _she said to him in the back of his mind. _'Be safe out there.'_ And then she moaned the name _'John' _in the deepest throes of pleasure and his defenses were torn to nothing but ash. He could only move on, search her out, and save her before another man decided what her fate was meant to be.


	25. Fulfillment

**Oxfordshire, England – **_11 pm_**

* * *

**

She crawled backwards onto the bed, beneath his hovering weight, watching his steady eyes without fear. She smiled as her tears dried, and sighed tenderly when she saw John's hand covering the red satin on the front of her bodice. She was covered with icy warmth as he carefully bunched her skirts and lifted them from her calves, sliding his body between her widened legs, where she welcomed him at long last.

"Tell me everything you wish for," he mumbled against the heat of her lips. "Start from the very beginning and don't stop until I've fulfilled every need you have, Ella."

Her entire body tingled with the words, his continued offering. She finally had him where she had most craved him being, and he was hers for the taking, available to her every sexual whim. She leaned further into his stone hard chest, her hand traveling from his stomach to his neck, weaving through the black curls of his wig to tear it away. He accepted with a laugh and she knew that she wanted every possible thing imaginable, every last bit of pleasure that could ever be derived in one evening, by one man and for any one woman. She wanted it all.

"I wish for your mouth." The tips of her fingers touched his lips. "I want to feel your mouth all over me. Kiss every pore you find."

He grinned wickedly and parted his lips to draw her few fingers inside. He stared at her deeply as his tongue swathed the tips and her thick black lashes flurried, covering her green eyes from sight. That's when John eased her gently to her side, then face down into the pillows of the sprawling bed. She moaned softly into the linens as he straddled her legs, unweaving the laces and buttons of her dress, tearing one layer away at a time. Every move he made slightly to the left or right, she felt the prodding hardness beneath the loose fabric of his breeches, grinding into the backs of her legs with a warned ache. Ella knew that the only thing she really wanted was to feel all of him buried deep inside of her where it was warm, where he would cool her passionately.

"John?"

He pulled away the last remnants of her dress, leaving her in a thin white chemise and gartered stockings as he leaned down. His chest was pressed to her back to reach the sound of her voice.

"My darling?" he whispered upon her ear, counting the ripples beneath her skin.

"Read to me more of your poetry," Ella sighed. "I want to hear you speak those beautiful words to me again."

"Such an enthusiast you are, Miss Rousseau."

She breathed a laugh as she felt him remove the thin sleeve of her lace chemise, then press his cool lips to her burning skin, kissing as he recited.

"_Absent from thee I languish still. Then ask me not, when I return?" _

His mouth brushed carefully across her right shoulder blade, down the valley of her high, smooth back to the left blade. He kissed her deeply with a stroke of his tongue that made her muscles all tense beneath him.

"_The straying fool it will plainly kill. To wish all day, all night to mourn." _

An iced breath covered her as he watched her body arching off the bed, nearly hugging his chest with her desperation for more of his mouth, more of those words she seemed so lost between. He drew down the chemise even further, to bear witness to the plane of honey skin wrapping her spine, and kissed each soft knot as it twitched and calmed, his lips and tongue the curator.

"_Dear, from thine arms then let me fly. That my fantastic mind may prove the torments it deserves to try, that tears my fixed heart from my love." _

John held her hips firmly as he worked his way down the curvature of her back, tongue tracing the pathway to the low, where beads of sweat existed in every pore, where the incline to her sweet bottom rested in his palms. She wished for him to kiss her skin dry of desperation, and so he followed as she whimpered and softened beneath him, like heat to crème, or ice to scorching tea.

"I want to see you," she pleaded into the pillows. "_John_—let me see your eyes."

He did as he was asked, gently rolling her body over in his arms so that his head rested upon the curve of her right hip. He stared up at her as he hugged her thighs and breathed in the scent of lust between them, under the lace shift. Ella had a helpless expression on her face as she reached out for him, begging him to come nearer.

As he laid his head upon her delicate breasts, he whispered, _"When wearied with a world of woe, to thy safe bosom, I retire." _Ella smiled and ran her fingers through his choppy black locks. _"Where love and peace and truth does flow, may I contented there expire…"_

In conclusion, he turned his mouth to capture the pebble of her left nipple between his lips and suckled it quietly. She felt her bones replaced with a cold liveliness as his tongue danced over the sensitive peak of her breast. His fingers squeezed the open flesh of her right hip and outer thigh. In all of this, no matter that she was weak with need and he was strong with deliverance for her needs, Ella and John's eyes never parted ways. They never gave into the intensity between them or tore their fiery gazes from one another's. They were fixed, intent to carry out the waves of every corner of bliss to their actions. She was determined to have him the way she'd dreamt for weeks.

"Speak to me, Eloise." He smiled and removed his mouth from her breast. "Enlighten me of the things I see boiling in your eyes, before I go mad upon this bed. Upon _you_."

She relaxed under the spell of his eyes, his hands, and most importantly his soft mouth, where she touched it again with the tips of her fingers.

"Open me. Taste me," Ella said proudly. He felt his body harden all over again, knowing just what and where and how she meant for him to, "Make love to me with your mouth."

"_Oh, love_. How dare you to lie there in praise of my words. Have you no idea what you're capable of doing to a man who encompasses no beating organs, with mere syllables?"

She watched through humored eyes as he descended to her navel, then further, kissing the entire way down. With him, went the remainder of the chemise. He pulled it from her legs and spread them wide for the invitation she offered. His hands were smooth and tempting as they ran down her inner thighs, over the white silk stockings and wine colored ribbons at each side. Her heart beat a million times more quickly, and her legs trembled as he removed her golden heels. John lifted each leg atop his shoulders, bracing her for his possession of her last steady breath.

He winked once for warning, and waited for her smile to take his proper hide in the midst of her rich thighs. He disappeared from sight and Ella felt even the damaged muscles in her bad knee—the one that refused to dance—spasm with a spark of untouchable pleasure. She gasped at his cold tongue moving swiftly between the damp folds of skin at her core. Her back arched off the bed as if she were flying, and she cried out his name.

Then the tempo became so suddenly fixed and she relaxed back beneath the comfort of his hand on her navel. She found his eyes darting open from between her legs, his black gaze wild upon hers, and it lulled her down into the pillows. Ella was soothed by the entrance and exit of his tongue from within her body, where he tasted every slick wall in a swirling motion that had her completely undone from head to toe. Her legs were hooked more desperately to his face, pulling him down to where she most needed him and already had all of him.

And then she felt, as if from out of nowhere, his hand sliding down from her navel, through the soft, dark patch of hair hiding her from the world. The pad of his thumb pressed her clitoris lightly, prolonging the agony of her soaring ecstasy. Ella writhed in the blankets, fingers gripping for anything they could - pillows, sheets, the top of his head and her own knees even. She rolled her hips with the fast movement of his mouth, accepting as much of his tongue as she could, and reveling in the slight circular motions his thumb was making to the ball of nerve endings that caused her every pore to tingle bitterly.

"_Mm…" _he heard her purr anxiously. Then her one word, "_Yes_," drove him over the edge as he drilled through the contracting heat more furiously, desperate to taste more of what she had, what she was holding back. Ella's ankles and the heels of her feet dug into his back, urging him without the words she couldn't speak between breaths and mews. Her fingers wove through his short hair, forcing his mouth against her roughly, deliciously, while the first wave of bliss washed his tongue in the tart sweetness of her innermost juices.

"_Sweet Ella_," she heard him mumble as he devoured her, sweetening the sourness by licking at her sweating thighs against his cheeks.

There were clocks ticking overhead and candles flickering against walls, but the only thing that seemed to be steady at all, was the rush of her heat against the coldness of his lips. It was the most profound surge he'd ever conquered with another, in all of those long years running. He was lost in her, all of her, crawled from between her legs to gently cradle her in his arms in the center of the bed. John kissed every small bead of sweat from her brow, counted the number of times she smiled beyond the stars in her eyes. He listened for minutes, at the flow of her breath from spotted to smooth. She was mesmerizing even more than she had been before to him. She was like a perfect glass of wine, or a perfect line in a perfect poem—two things he'd always known well.

Eventually, she turned her mouth towards his open chest and he felt her kiss his cool skin, mumbling something gratuitous.

"What else is it you require of me, my angel? Name it."

Ella fell back in his arms and stared up into his eyes for a moment. Then she slowly sat at his level, her legs tied around his waist and her hands soft on his cheeks. She smiled and torment struck his hardened flesh.

"I want only one more thing," she cooed and kissed his chin. And while he was lost in the trenches of her forested eyes, he felt her hand sliding down his chest, lifting the ancient linen of his tunic out of his breeches. Her hand fell gently upon his solid length. He did not flinch. He only eased into her breath and voice and smiles more. "I want to feel what you plan to give to me for the rest of our long days together. I want to know what pleasure I'm seeking in eternity with your charming form."

"_Charming_?"

She nodded with a kiss on his upper lip, sitting on her knees to hover over him.

"You have me charmed."

"Have I?"

"You have," she replied and kissed the bridge of his nose as she began lifting his tunic from his chest. Once it was off his head and tossed from the bed, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts to his cool skin. "Frozen as you are, _Lord Rochester_. You have me burned for nothing but you. Harm me if you must, but swear you'll take me to the stars first."

He smirked. "Witty Eloise."

"Witty yes, and desperate for you still."

Before he captured her mouth, John whispered, "I adore you as nothing but in this bed. You desperate, forlorn little creature. Let us solve this crisis, here and _now_."

She laughed upon his lips when they crashed to hers, and when they tumbled back down to the castle of bedding together. He held her like an already eternal lover, a man who'd held her no differently for the whole of his life, and then beyond to his afterlife. John had her so tangled in his striking passion that she hardly gave a single thought to Frederick at all. She saw only a small glimpse of him in the back of her mind when she felt John pulling from his trousers that which had her named etched upon its hardness.

She thought of Fred then for a split second, of what he would think of her position, of her crawling into the arms of another man, a half killed, half living, half _'there at all' _man. Ella wondered if he would disown her completely, or fall at her feet and wretch for the loss of her, or if he would simply stand at the end of the bed and contemplate why he'd ever bothered giving her his heart. She wondered on it, and then she felt John's cold mouth pressed to the valley of her breasts, breaking her inner battle to bring her back to the reality of what was happening.

"Look at me," he demanded sweetly.

And she did.

"Before I bestow this wretchedness upon your perfect beauty, before I change you forever for my own greed," John hovered where she most loved seeing him, where her hands were pressed tenderly to his chest. "Tell me, with absolute conviction, that it's what you want. Swear it to me, Ella. Assure me that this will make you most happy in the world. To be with me, healed completely of injury. You will able to dance just as before, if not better. You will be otherworldly in your greatness. But the immoral truth will remain of what you are, what you will become same as I."

She gulped and held his chest more firmly.

"There is no going back from here. No restoration from the point of no return."

"I know that," she whispered.

"And yet you're sure? You're willing to give him up for me, at last?"

The indirect mention of Frederick unwound her spirit. She was wounded by the notion of _'him'_, the other _'him'_, her living, breathing _'him'_, with safe arms and open eyes and a beating heart just for her. Ella died a little bit in that moment, under John's pensive gaze, and at the command of her confused head and heart. She second guessed herself all over again. She trembled at the touch of his hand, his swelling manhood between her legs, and his stone cold perfectness in lifelessness, the thing she was trading her Frederick for. She paused in want of a gifted answer, and found none.

The choice was hers, not nature's any longer. And maybe that's why she was far too hasty.

Ella drew his face down to hers carefully and pressed her nose to the tip of his as she breathed. "I'm sure. I wish to be yours, evermore."

Before she could think up another word to speak, John had granted her one lovely smile that began at the corner of his mouth and crept slowly, at the same rate of which he filled her body with his aching length. He was devoured by her every sweet fold. She yelped his name lovingly, held fast to his neck and let herself drown in the frozen warmth of him sliding deep into hide within her.

Ella crashed to the bed then, surrendering to the spell of his immortal bliss.


	26. The Hunt

**Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire – **_11:45 pm

* * *

_

The horse trampled down the last end of the gravel drive towards the shadowy vastness of the estate. Its walls were towering, and it's windows were illuminated at random by a flickering of orange light, candles. The trees that were cast over the fountain where he tied the exhausted horse, petting his nose as he drank from the ice cold water—kept Frederick in hide long enough to search out the best avenue to enter upon the house. The front door was out. The windows were surely all sealed against the February wind. But there had to be back doorways, a kitchen access, or cellar hatch on the opposite side.

So he ran his hand down the side of the horse's aching stomach and hurried into the underbrush of the immense property's landscaping. He listened for sounds that would parallel those he'd heard in the back of his mind all night, but heard none. There was only silence and a bitter gust of air that left him frozen as he crashed against the first corner of the mansion. He stared up at the blue moon.

'_I love you too,'_ she whispered over and over to him. _'You were perfect.'_

He loved that she was there with him. Although he knew she was truly elsewhere in the vicinity. Hopefully, not within the sheets he so pictured her, and not bound in the arms of the man he knew intended only harm to her. Frederick moved down the length of the outer walls of the home, towards the back, to where he hoped something, anything would be unlocked and forgotten by those inside. Silence prevailed even where the glow of the ground level windows to the cellar were. The house was quiet, vacant, and just waiting to be compromised by his rage.

Vines grew tangled about the iron handles of the cellar doors, and he ripped through them, cutting his frozen palms on a thorn or two. Freed of aged containment, he pulled upward and out. The doors creaked and fell back with a thud in the wind. Light from within the basement illuminated the old steps leading downward. He snatched the one lantern from the wall when he'd found it, and hurried through the cobweb infested underground that led to first a wine cellar, and then to a stairwell. It took him to the kitchen, abandoned with the quiet of night.

Frederick's ears were focused even more than his eyes in the hazy darkness. He wanted to hear her voice, even if only for a shattered moment. He wanted to know he was on the right path, that this was the house and the night and the trail of destruction that continued to flash in his mind. So, he crept around a long wooden table, through herbs and shelves and cutlery racks, heading for the door opposite the cellar. It swung back, and his view was that of a golden parlor, which faced an immaculate dining area. No bodies moved within and no sound resonated on the thick wooden walls. The candlelight danced inside of waxed shells. The glass and porcelain dishware gleamed and reflected with sparkles from a high chandelier, onto the icy windows. It was the only life within the space.

He sat the lantern down on the table and moved for a hallway that rounded towards a grand staircase at the front foyer of the mansion. Its steps were carpeted, its rails carved for ignorant delight, and its entire length was cast in a blue shadow of ill inhabitance. It was as though the place had been deserted in the middle of a regular evening affair—all of 200 years ago—and never returned to. It was creepy, the way he most feared it would be.

But he carried on. He gripped the hand rail, and began to climb into the highest trenches of the quietest rafters, of the most dangerous house in the countryside. He shuddered when he heard a squeak from what could have been miles away. And he leaped into a sudden jog, the moment he heard the omens of his inner consciousness, coincide with the whisper of a moan high above his head.

It was a girl's moan.

* * *

The slow grind of his body upon hers had begun only once Ella had opened her eyes to the faint candlelight again. Her eyelashes fluttered and her heart skipped a beat, as hollow as the heated space within in her that he had so suddenly chilled. Her hands flew from his neck to the pillows over her head, where she gripped the satin tassels she could only but feel. John was still, patient in wanting her to find absolute comfort, which he realized all too soon, she had found the exact moment he'd entered her.

Eloise smiled hazily at him, and he raised her legs each higher, deepening the plunge of his body between. He knew in the way that she moaned his name a second time, the way in which she held the pillow more determinately and spread herself more casually beneath him, that she was in utter luxury.

"_Kiss me,"_ he heard her whisper. And he couldn't deny the forlorn look on her face.

John fell down, the smoothness of his chest sliding with the temperate dampness of her navel and bosom. His mouth struck first her chin, while his hands were firmly planted into the linens at her sides, and then brushed the curl of her bottom lip, which sat plump and moist and faintly bleeding from the urgency of her own teeth. He stared at the small bead of crimson in the orange light of the room, hovering above the fiery scent of it, breathing in that single droplet of life within her. He thought to ignore it. He thought to kiss her deeply and savor the taste of her blood in the back of his throat, as an afterthought perhaps.

But he did not.

He instead, held Ella safely in his arms, and let his tongue casually flick at her lip, stealing the drop of coppery heaven. Her eyes widened in shock, expecting more of his gesture, more of his mouth. He reacted greedily, in a way that Ella saw to be nothing less than beautiful. It was the slight of his hand gripping her right thigh when he indulged in the early zing of the blood from her lip. It was the way his eyes seemed to rotate back within his head, like planets swirling in the night sky. It was the way he began without any proper warning, to pound into her, moving his hips at a rapid, _'speed of light'_ rate guaranteed to put any other man before him to shame. Ella calculated that thought as she tangled her fingers within those of his left hand, knuckles grazing the wooden headboard.

Somewhere in the midst of heat and cold, brightness and darkness, jagged and smooth strokes of passion, Ella heard herself scream wildly into John's mouth, squeeze her thighs tighter around his waist to accept all of him that she possibly could. She felt the first violent stir of the bed beneath them. It was a powerful noise of creaks and cries, one that matched the desire begging to be freed of her lungs and the arctic burn she felt being buried further and further within her at second-to-second intervals of white light. The sound of the bed moving with them, with their actions, their own desperate entanglement, did nothing but support the fury.

There was a _'John'_ for every two _'pleases' _and a whimper of ecstasy for every other thrust of his manhood within her. Little did Ella realize the disheartening role they were playing in her survival.


	27. Poison

He trampled the stairs two-by-two until he'd reached the last flight on the third floor of the grand house, the one where all the noise originated from.

It was too much and at the same time, not enough. It was too much to bear, indeed, the sound of her voice rising above the pounding of his inner mind. It was too much to bear knowing that she was lost, content with enjoyment. Frederick knew the sounds she was making. He'd known them all too well to not feel that hearing them now, amid the circumstances, and without him stirring them from her—was unbearable.

Still though, it was not enough to kill him. He'd rescued himself from worse, he was sure. There was his lost wife and child within moments of one another. There was Mary, gone to the tides of too many memories and hopes and prayers that she'd made it to the Irish coast as safe as possible. There was too much that he'd lost before, and one more thing could not kill him, as much as it could contain him, strengthen his hatred of the world. Ella would only be one more loss among the many, the shrill calls of ecstasy that he could hear echoing around him, were what she so desired. He could revel in her flee from his hands, but not so easily his heart. That was another matter. That single thought alone was what kept him moving towards the ache of ancient wood and yearning bones.

He heard the explosive _'John'_ that his induced memory had not forgotten, from behind a silenced wall, through an alcove at the dark end of the forty-foot long hallway. He snarled. He tossed his coat aside and removed one idle necessity. Then, with the sleeves of his shirt drawn upward for the intense labor of his love, Frederick Abberline took another step in the direction of imminent danger.

* * *

"_Now,"_ she growled anxiously at the crest of sweet release. "John. Do it now!"

Ella's head lolled on the pillow, as he pressed the entirety of his weight against her, drawing out the thrusts within. The pleasure was heightened by his every pause or readjustment or ease of climax. He had her completely unwound, nothing but steaming flesh and inviting bones. He watched the blood rise in her cheeks, and then from the tips of her fingers where they were tightly bound to his, down the length of her forearm, and into the curve of her shoulder. He could see the every trickle of her life, from each vein to the beating, rising heart in her bosom.

With his free hand sliding around her neck, fingers ensnared, clutching her silky midnight curls, John lifted her head from the pillow and brought her lips towards his. The sluggish drive of his hips, of his stiff, icy shaft was nerve-wracking and wonderful and enlightening on levels Ella had never experienced before at her young age. And she felt certain had she lived on for a hundred years, she never would. He alone could provide such a sensation. He alone, could kiss her lips completely one moment, tongue weaved through the cavern of her mouth as cooling refreshment to the breathy heat—only to suddenly reappear in another second, at the hollow of her throat, and finally at the arc of her neck beneath her earlobe.

She could feel his teeth at the beat of her carotid artery, drawn out for a purpose now. She could feel the final ridge of her climax, building, pleading for freedom. And when he granted it wholly, allowing her to wash him in her warm juices, he also added fuel to the burn of the moment, by sinking his teeth down into her soft flesh. Ella felt the initial sting of the bite, but could only drown in the explosion between her legs, from all of her insides outward. She held onto his arms as tightly as she could, parted her lips in a sweet whimper of pain and satisfaction blended.

Strangely, somewhere in the middle of her comfortable state, she found the displeasure. The world began to suddenly turn on a rigid axis, the fill of his body within hers was gone, and Ella was falling helplessly in his arms, to a black haze of light. There was no escaping it. There was no escaping his strength or the friction of his teeth upon her flesh, piercing the flow of her blood dead-on. The struggle was worthless. The cries for help that disguised themselves as continued moans, did nothing to stop him. He could not. He would not now. She'd promised him this.

Her eyes fell back into her head once, only to remerge when the suckling sound at her neck, was replaced by the angered thud of a door, somewhere far off, somewhere in a shining distance where a voice shouted, _"Get the hell off o' her!". _She heard John growl and turn his mouth from devouring her, from releasing his own toxins deep inside of her veins. In the cloudiness of her vision, she saw him soar from her and then felt herself falling down to the satin bed again. Ella did not rest, though. She writhed, fingernails digging into the linens, mouth agape with agony as she felt her spine flexing, her ankles losing all sensation, and her breath growing more and more haggard. Whatever he had meant to do, she knew he had not finished, and in her heart, Eloise knew too, that it wasn't a safe thing for her.

All she could manage to do was struggle alone and listen to the shouting and body falling. Claims were made from two different directions in the room, _"You're not taking her from me, you bastard," _and _"There's nothing you can provide for her that I can't triple through the beauty of mere transformation, peasant!" _The voices were distinct. They were real and there and happening, both fighting for her. He had come, Fred, the way she'd hoped he wouldn't. And because she knew he was there, mortal and capable of falling victim even more easily than her—Ella forced her body to cooperate with her mind. She pulled herself along the sheets of the bed until she reached the edge. And as easily as she could, she tumbled down from the four foot high mattress, to the rug upon the wood floor.

Her body—which was sensitive to everything—crumpled as she cried out.

Frederick turned for half a second at the sound, ignoring his enemy's eyes to search out Ella's safety, and he soon understood the foolishness of it. For the moment he looked back, was the moment he felt himself being mauled, shoved from his stance in the middle of the candlelit room, towards the dinner table at the opposite side. John forced him against it, and his back landed on the edge, spine seeming to crack in two with the sound of his fall.

Frederick seethed with the pain, tumbled to the floor in a mess of food and linens, and caught his second wind before pulling from his back pocket the item in question of his own defense. It was a mere stake of aspen pine, bought from a sour-tongued Chinese man in the wrong corner, of the worst den in Worley that same night. It was his only chance now.

"You're much better off surrendering with a breast of human malice." John stepped in towards him on the floor, giving Fred the opportunity to crawl back to his feet before he added at perfect eye level, "She cannot be won this way, or any other you should desire to try. Her love for me shall conquer whatever pitiful connection you had made. It already has, Inspector."

He spit back, "I'm a man o' evidentiary reason, Wilmot. Show me or I cannot believe it."

John smirked like the devil himself, shifted on his bare feet, and revealed to Frederick the sight of Eloise upon the floor of the room, slithering tooth and nail, half bound in a single white sheet, across the wood and rug. His heart jumped and his knees ached to run to her. But he couldn't. It would defeat his purpose. To die at the hands of a man like this John, this otherworldly force of destruction, would only leave Ella wounded there, halfway to a poisonous death.

His rival's form blocked the scene from his view once more and he was forced to look into his blackened eyes, heated with an icy intensity. He'd already taken notice of the half open ties of John's breeches, his bare chest and the raw shade of his purple lips, where he had kissed and touched with mouth alone, their shared muse. This only made the anger rise more in Frederick's gut as he gripped the stake more decidedly, and stepped toward the being in question.

"She's going to die without the option of immorality," John hissed at him. "The poison is in her veins already, you fool. You're wasting both your time and her own this way."

Fred's top lip curled in anger, nervousness. He could hear Ella crying out for him, for the both of them, for someone, anyone to help her. And he knew it had to be him. There was no choice now.

"Leave, Inspector." With a sway of his hand and a serious eye, John began to step backward, half turned when he concluded, "You're of no use to her anymore. Time has no room left for heroes."

It was half a second that brought John's marble feet to shift on the rug, and then, Frederick's arm upward, overhead and out towards the man's back on the right side. The stake lingered in the air for what felt like an eternity, before he saw it's rough wooden edge slowly descending, falling to the jutting shoulder blade of a creature unaware in that small moment. Or so he thought, as usual.

Had Frederick read deeper into the bowels of the library's vampire texts and eye-witness accounts throughout Europe, he might have also come to understand the power of such a beast's instincts, of their sense of direction, smell, movement and happenings in and all around them. He might have known then, that when he raised the stake to drive it through John's shoulder blades and far into the chasm of his ancient, un-moving heart—that his enemy would turn in defense, and with him prove to be equally as prepared.

The stake did not pierce John's heart, but rather his left breast in his turn and at Frederick's shock. And in the exact moment this occurred, so too did the blade tucked somewhere in the pocket of John's breeches, drive through Frederick's shirt, cutting deep into his lower left abdomen. He would have known, had he not been so quick to defend and protect. He would have known for his own safety. But still, Ella would have faltered and he would have died an even worse death than by a blade wound.

She screamed out for him, his name, "Frederick, NO!" And he loved her for that. She crawled towards him, crying, pleading, as the dust in his eyes settled and he fell from the wretchedness of John's arms to the floor where she was. And he loved her for that. She touched his hand, her lifeless fingertips just brushing his open palm where it lay still, before she too fell to the same weary exhaustion that he did. And he loved her for that.

The rest, whatever it was, gave way to only clear skies and hope-filled wishes.


	28. Saving Tears

**Metropolitan Hospital – **_London, England

* * *

_

It was a single window, consisting of four large panes that gave way to the scene of all the uncertainty he had ever known. Blurred shadows of bed nurses and assisting physicians and men who wanted nothing more than a peek at the last victim of the city's recent horrors, was what he saw now. The rumors had spread through the night and early day, by way of constable's mouths. Everyone had heard of what he was witnessing presently. All of London now knew about the girl that was considered to have been halfway to another world, halfway to death and halfway to becoming a most feared creature.

Frederick felt his stomach churn at every passing word, every suggestion.

He had been found unconscious by the staff at the Devonshire estate and then brought to a hospital. He allowed the doctors to tend to his wound while they carried away the only thing that he had ever cared about in the whole of the situation. Eloise was gone before he knew where they had taken her. Her body was limp in the arms of others that cradled her. Her cheeks were frozen, lips numb with a violet hue, and her hand clenched the same as it had been when his had held it, drifting into their dream-like state, on the floor of a room in a most dangerous home.

It was all gone. The mansion of time compelled to stand, the beast that had first filled her sweet veins with poison and then wounded Frederick, keeping him from saving Ella from her fate. No one had seen where John Wilmot, a most respected man and poet and charitable force, had disappeared to. No one could seem to believe that it had truly been him—a descendant of great names and great men—who had caused such harm to the beautiful girl on the table, in the lone room of the hospital, at present. The doctors had begun to suspect the Inspector of severe mind loss, and he had since for hours, heard them whispering their shared diagnoses of dementia. He would not have been surprised of his own insanity at that point, if he had not known exactly what he'd seen and felt and known all evening long.

"Get them all out o' there. Every last one of those bastards," he grumbled at Godley, who stood nearby at the window. "I want no one near her but the physician in charge."

His large friend sighed. Then he stepped back with an _"Aye"_ and began to usher the men of medical studies from the room. They each glared at Frederick curiously as they moved through the door. But he didn't pay them any attention. His sole focus was on that same hazy window view, where he watched the flicker of metal objects and porcelain bowels of bloody water being passed between young women in white aprons and caps. These images would stay with him forever—the coolness of the glass under his sweating palm, the unmoving form beneath the white sheet on the wooden operating table, the smells and sounds and tastes in the air, of near lifelessness. It would all be remembered in the worst part of his mind, until something of worth occurred, something hopeful of change.

He hobbled to a bench on the other side of the long white hall. Godley saw his struggle, and helped him to sit. Frederick threw his head back, bit his bottom lip against the pain radiating in his ribs, and shut his eyes. He pretended to be resting. He pretended to be sleeping, to prevent the tears from falling. He felt more whole with them there, soaking the insides of his eyelids, filling and drowning him in silence. He found the faintest peace in the occupation of not letting a single tear go loose. He would save them all for when Ella opened her eyes again.

He would transform the sad tears to happy ones then.


	29. Speechless

**Metropolitan Hospital – **_March 3__rd_**

* * *

**

Rain—it was rain she was hearing. Like the teardrops of a thousand angels against windowpanes. Were they crying for her? Or were they crying with her? This, she could not determine.

Eloise wanted to reach out and feel the tears, the raindrops, hitting her cold palm. She wanted to know that she could but do such a thing. She wanted to feel a part of the place in which she resided, a bowl of white light, where nothing and no one but she sat. She wondered why he was not there with her, why neither of them had come. Certainly, wherever she had ended up, one of them must have followed. Whether heaven, or the hells of a time unchanging, ever-drifting.

Yet, there was no Frederick, and there was no John. There was Ella, alone in thought.

"_Fear not. You'll dream of me, pet."_

And so she did. He was there even without standing bodily at her side. His every spoken word and promise and offer, wavered over her head, within arm's reach, waiting to be pulled down and cradled safely in her keep. She could feel his mouth in places that were hidden in the midst of the white clouds. She could feel the smoothness of his marble tongue, bringing to life her every pore, satiating her limbs, corner by corner, freckle by freckle, and tremble by excruciating tremble. The ecstasy lingered. The scent of him, upon her, within her, all over her, filled the space. It calmed her until she wanted no more calm.

To replace it, was tension, and it arrived in the form of Frederick's breath. It trickled down her neck, through every curl of her hair, and across her shoulders. It melted the chill that John had left behind. It unnerved her in the best of ways, the most humane and gentle and caring of ways. His breath protected her like no stone cold kiss ever could. His body filled hers, so much so that Ella swore he was there then, in that moment, moving with her through the white space, tangled and twisted and dripping with sweat upon her breasts.

She could no longer see the line that stood between her imagination and reality. It was so fine a thing. It was so consistently crossed now, that she believed herself to be making love to him, arms safe around his neck, mouth parted and raw as it brushed against his sideburns with every swift thrust. Ella believed it all so much, that she only stopped herself once she heard the sound of the rain on windows again. She let him go, hand sliding across his chest as he disappeared. Her fingertips moved away, moist with his heat and his love, like droplets of that same rain, those same angels' teardrops for her.

That's when she realized that it wasn't a choir of angels, but only one guardian.

It was him.

"_I want you, Eloise. When will I see you again?" _

"_Soon, I hope."_

The moment she heard herself say it, somewhere in the farthest reaches of her memory, she felt her eyes opening in a way she hadn't realized they could. She thought them to already have been open, to the whiteness, the blankness of emotions and sensations and two men doing to her what she'd never believed either of them would again, let alone at fair intervals.

Ella was back to the reality. She'd crossed the line once more. And here, in this place, there was only more of the cold, and as she had guessed, rain sliding down long windows on towering walls. There were instruments that glimmered with faint light, and there was a sickening scent of coppery blood, which resembled death. Among the tastes and aromas and sights, there was but one single sound, moving faintly through the silence. It was agony. It was falling pain, teardrops from stricken eyes. It was the sobbing of a man—a thing that so rarely was a woman tribute to, and Ella, never before.

She blinked away the sleep from her eyes. She curled her tired toes beneath the white sheets.

And then she parted her lips, quivering with the cold, ready to speak. She meant only to whisper his name across the room, to use the call and bring him forth from hiding where she could not turn her neck in pain. She had intended to say _'Frederick'_, until he came to her side and kissed her, loved her and forgiven her. But when she forced the word in her throat, and moved her lips to form the syllables of his sweet name, nothing left but her warm breath. The word was not formed. The name was not called.

Ella had never felt as trapped as she did then, all so suddenly. She ached with longing, to ask for him, to make him come to her from wherever he was she could not see and only hear. She tried again to say his name, and once more, nothing arrived but her own exasperating breath. Beneath the sheets, she drew her hands into fists. She bit her lower lip in anger and crossed her brow defiantly. She was readied to scream for him, to make herself into an outrageous case, to go wild upon the hard wooden bed. She was going to yell for him, for anyone, when she realized that it was not going to happen. She could not form the words, or even the sounds to voice her opinion, her desperation. It was as if she had but disappeared.

Save for one thing—her tears, her own sobs.

She used them to her advantage in an instant. She cried like she had never cried before, noises made by a natural defense of emotion, rather than any speech or state of mind. And it worked, though nothing else had. For not a full moment passed, before she could hear his sobs retire beneath hers, and saw him from the corner of her eye, hurrying to her bedside. He stood as handsome as she'd ever remembered him. He spared no time in taking her wet face into his hands, in finding the spirit of alertness in her green eyes, and brushing away the tears as they fell.

"You're awake," he spoke with a trembling lip. "_Oh_. You came back to me, love."

His smile faded with sadness, but was there just the same.

Ella wanted to reach out and weave herself inside of his arms completely. She wanted to hide her face against his neck and tell him she was sorry, and that she'd always loved him, and that she'd been a fool. She wanted to ask him if he was alright, and check his every bone and pore for wounds—ones she knew as well were there someplace. She wanted to say words to him, words she'd always meant to and hadn't before. But with her voice playing cruel tricks on her, none of it came forth. She could only lie beneath his sweet eyes and listen to him speak.

He said, "Everything's going to be alright." And she tried to believe him.

He said, "You're safe now. He's gone." And she tried to agree with him, silently.

He said, "I love you, Eloise." And she tried to say it back. But couldn't.

"It is as well, darling." Frederick kissed her forehead as he hovered over her. "You don't need to answer me now. You need to rest only."

She shook her head tiredly in his hands, trying to make him understand her. She pulled on the collar of his shirt and the buttons of his wrinkled vest, but he could not see her meaning.

"What's wrong?"

She opened her mouth to attempt any sound possible, but all that came was a sigh, a small, throaty moan. His eyes widened nervously at the way she struggled, the way in which she remained silent but desperate for something the same. Frederick took both of her cold hands and squeezed them in his, trying to warm her.

"You're cold, yes? Is that it?"

Ella cried and shook her head up at him.

"You're in pain, then. Let me go and get the doctor—"

Before she could stop him, the buttons of his shirt loosened from her grasp. He scurried back from the bed and through the door of the large, echoing room. She was left alone, crying more deeply, waiting for the news she already felt.

It came too, when the doctor and Frederick returned together, in a storm of anxious movement around her bed. A few nurses, with their starched aprons and perfectly creased hats, lingered near each side as well. Hands moved upon her tiny body, touching limbs and places where the pain was assured to be. And yet it was not. There was nothing but a numb comfortableness when they touched her. The only struggle that existed was revealed when the doctor began to ask her questions, ones she could not and did not respond to, though she desperately tried.

A prognosis was all too soon formed.

"Miss Rousseau," the doctor spoke. "I'll need you to sit up for me."

Ella looked to Frederick, and he wrapped his arms about her tiny form, lifting her carefully. She rested in his embrace, her every bone trembling against his body as she cried with the pain and the fear of so many people circling her in silence. Then the doctor stepped in closer, with two different instruments in hand, a small reflecting mirror and the other a prodding stick. She felt her skin crawl nervously.

"I'll need for you to open your mouth as well, Eloise."

She did as she was asked, prying them open with her chattering teeth.

"A little wider," he said quietly. And she did. "That's it, very well."

He moved both instruments between her lips and studied for a long time, not saying a word, only examining in silence. Ella could feel Fred's arms growing stronger around her, his voice in her ear, whispering sentiments to calm her. It only helped so much. Because all she truly wanted then, was for him to be quiet, and for her to have the opportunity to speak to him, to reassure him of her love.

"Right." The doctor removed the tools with a sturdy eye. "Inspector Abberline," he commanded past her head. "A word with you, perhaps?"

Ella's body shook in his hold, and he felt her fear the same as his own.

"Of course," he finally answered.

He helped her to rest again in the care of the nurses, and wandered to the far side of the room with the doctor. Suddenly, standing beside the rain painted window, overlooking the drenched city, he felt as if he were back in the prenatal ward of the same hospital, being spoken to by a midwife with sorrowful tears in her eyes and an extended hand of comfort on his shoulder. He felt as though he were back at the beginning of his life's sadness, reliving it now with another woman, a new woman, Ella—the one he truly needed more than life itself.

He at last heard the older man speak in a hushed tone.

"Eloise has suffered traumatically, as you well know. Drawing from the infected bloodstream must have been done sooner to prevent this. The toxins, whatever they so be from, were beyond a control, as only now we can see. There has been damage done that I had no knowledge of beforehand."

Frederick gulped and turned his eyes to where he saw the nurses tucking Ella under the sheets, wiping the sleep and tire and tears from her eyes with a warm cloth.

"What are you saying, Doctor Phillips?"

"I suppose what I mean to say, is that the poison and infection have spread. The appearance now is one of muteness, Inspector."

His brow crossed and his head spiraled back to the old man.

"What are you talking about? No. That's not possible."

The doctor nodded gravely. "There can be no other explanation. She cannot speak. She has been taken deaf, as permanently as I can stand to guess."

"No." Fred shook his head in disagreement. "You're mistaken. Check her again. You're a bloody doctor. Help her!"

From across the room, Ella flinched at the sound of Frederick's voice raised. She saw him standing angrily before the doctor, but could not hear what the old man was saying. She could hear nothing but the sound of her own head, pounding from the inside out. It forced her to sleep, to relieve the ache. Whatever it was that had been said, or determined of her, whatever it meant at all, was of very little concern to her once she had drifted off.

There was only peace. And there, in that state, she could tell Frederick all the things she meant for him to know, forever.


	30. The Remedy

**Hampshire – Dorset, England

* * *

**

The coachman had driven endlessly through the south English countryside. Sunshine was cast upon April's flowers cropping along the road as they passed each small town. There was no sight more beautiful than the end of winter, of a horrific February long behind them. Ella's nose was pressed to the rounded glass window of the carriage as it rolled on. She dizzied herself with curiosity until she felt a hand touch hers on the seat.

"Almost there," he whispered.

She squeezed his hand in return with a short glance, unsmiling, then turned to the window again and lost herself in the blues and violets and emeralds of the coastal path.

It had not been an easy month. It had been the single most frustrating thing that Ella had ever experienced, even more so than with her injured knee. When she had agreed to sit with Frederick and let him explain the situation, she had cried helplessly into his coat until it had become drenched with sadness. That was only the first night of her having understood the problem. More began to pass, days of angry struggle, of defiance against his offer to pay for a private signs teacher, or twelve if need be. On a scratched note of parchment, she had written clearly for him and Doctor Phillips to see:

_I do not need signs. I will speak again. You'll see._

Because Frederick could not deny her willpower, and the doctor could not bear to have the argument a second or third time, he had agreed with the Inspector, that a trip to the southern coast might do her most good. Abberline told of his family's abandoned cottage by the sea, where the air was fresher than anywhere in all of London, and the days were always sunny. Ella had breathed at the thought, taken his hand kindly, and nodded for her response.

So they were headed there now, two trunks packed with clothes enough for months and months of remedial seclusion. He had taken leave from his position with the department, and Godley had stepped in, for as temporarily or permanently as would be needed. It would be no one but them, windows and doors opened to his mother's old garden and the sea alone. It would be perfect—as perfect as it could be given the circumstances.

He would care for her the same as he had their last weeks in London. He would remain patient, steady her moods when they came and calm her sadness when he saw it forming. He would make her see that despite their silent resolve to not clutter themselves with passion and lust and all the things they once were, that he still loved her, just as he said every morning and every night. He would convince Ella that it was safe for her to reply the same, whether by paper or speechlessness, if she so desired him to remain hers.

_And if not_, he contemplated as the carriage rolled down the path towards the last thatched roof on the cliff. _Then I can make her comfortable. That is what's most important. _He stared sidelong, watching her, watching the view through the window as they stopped. _I'll take care of her until she tires of it, of me—completely. _

Though, before he could say those words to her or find a convenient moment to, Ella had forced open the door of the carriage without the assistance of the driver, and ran as quickly as possible down the sandy trail towards the edge of the cliff. He jumped out behind her, calling her name, smiling at the way she tumbled in her bunched skirts down the path, her boots kicking up the yellow sand with each foot planted and removed. Her dark hair blew fierce and long and elegant in the April breeze. And when she stopped, in a bed of rocks thirty yards from the cottage above, down in the valley of the beach—he could smell her clean scent, the aroma of her hair and lips and skin, all in the wind around him.

He stood there for a long time, watching after her. He didn't need much more than that. Frederick knew what she was thinking, even without looking at him, even while she stared out at the sea and threw her arms out in the breeze, catching the first warmth of spring in the palms of her hands. Ella danced in the sand, nearly tripping over the laces of her boot several times, but never falling. She kept turning in place, like a ballerina in a tiny box, the music replaced by echoes of coastal birds and waves on the shore.

At last, he called to her— "You're perfect!"

Ella slowed and she blocked the sun's brightness with one hand to see Frederick higher upon the beach, grinning like a regular fool. She thought about how handsome he looked, about how she wanted to pull him into the sand to dance with her. She thought too, about how none of it would matter, if she couldn't speak all the things she was thinking. It would all have to wait for that reason.

Instead, she smiled and removed the small journal he'd bought for her in London, from her woven bag. She stumbled back to his side on the rocks, scribbling inside of it as they walked towards the cottage again. She revealed her words to him slowly:

_I despise London now. You've ruined me for the rest of the world with the beauty of this place._

Frederick read and laughed, hooking her arm about his as he walked her through the tall grasses outlining the property of the house. He called something out to the driver of the coach about their luggage, and then turned his face to hers and whispered, "This ole' place might change your mind some, love."

She shook her head against the notion the very moment he showed her through the old wooden gate towards the cottage. It was hidden among overgrown roses and lavender and peonies, nestled inside the boundaries of a mossy rock wall. The doorway was aged with sea spray and breezes, needing to be forced open by Frederick's shoulder.

He whisked her inside gently, as the coachman hauled their bags from behind. The first floor was dusky, shadowed by cracks of light in the old shutters and a few holes near the beams of the ceiling. There was a small cookery in the farthest corner, large doors that opened up to the entire English sea—once Frederick opened them for her to see—and plenty of worn sitting chairs. The wood floor creaked with every move they made together, same as the stairwell, when they climbed into the second level.

There, among the simple beauty and warmth of the rest of the house, the loft bedroom invited her like no other crevice of the cottage could. The bed was sprawling, fitted with linens from an altogether different time, only not as long ago as was expected. Old paintings were hung upon the walls, while wooden beams separated the sleeping quarter from the bathing room, and the large oak wardrobe from the built in library of books. It was a magnificent space, a loving, familial sort of place that she found all too welcoming. The view from the open shutter doors of the balcony could only but add to the perfectness of it all.

Ella breathed the sea gust that blew inside and smiled.

"Will it do?" Frederick asked.

Her eyes fluttered with peacefulness as she nodded. Then before he could step aside, or bring her bags upstairs for her, or leave to send off the coachman waiting outside—Ella stepped towards him, tugged at the buttons of his vest, and for the first time in nearly four weeks, kissed him. It was not on his mouth where he would have so desired it. But it was no less desirable for that matter. It lingered like a single flame would, on the curve of his left cheekbone, amid the faint scruffiness.

She pulled back and was still, silent, and unemotional. No words came, and he was quite used to it. He only wished it could have been different, everything back to normal.

Finally he whispered, "Are ye hungry?"

When she nodded again, face drawn low and blank, he used the response as excuse enough to take leave from the bedroom. He could find retirement in feeding her hunger, while ignoring his own for her. It was the single most difficult thing he had to do the rest of the evening long.

* * *

And it was no surprise at all, that the difficulty followed him into the next day, and the day following, on and on for almost two weeks. Though they spent countless hours together in ease—walking along the shore, swimming when the water was warm enough, reading or painting or talking quietly by the fireside of the parlor—at night, they went their separate ways. It was an unspoken sort of assumption between the two of them. Neither Ella nor Fred could remember where it had arisen, or who had first determined it. But they both understood why it was they continued to sleep in separate tangles of sheets—he on the sofa, and she in the bed upstairs, justly so.

It had started at his home in London, upon her leave from the hospital. He hadn't wanted to disrupt her health, or expect a single thing of her for that matter. And somewhere subconsciously, where even he couldn't see the meaning, he was doing it because he feared she felt as much lingering desire for the man of their nightmares, of her dreams, as she had once of him too. Fred thought Ella loved John, still. He assumed she could never be with him now, without thinking of another, of the vampire that had won her just as equally.

Somehow, Ella knew this. She saw this each night, as she stood on the first step leading to the loft, staring down into Frederick's eyes, silently saying goodnight. She understood his hesitation, because she had it the same, for whatever reason. Deep down where no one could see and even she could not reach, she felt things for a man who wasn't there.

But she had discerned, days into their stay on the coast of Hampshire, that she did not love John Wilmot anymore. She could not look into her heart, or her soul, and say for a certain moment, that he was what she wanted at present. She could not let herself imagine what might have happened had his bite worked, had he claimed her completely on the other side. For now, where things stood still and safe and right, she only ever wanted Frederick. He was all she could picture for herself. He was the world she wanted to hold in the palm of her hand, just as before.

And because she knew this, she had also promised herself not to use her paper and pencil to share the truth with him. She would not give him her heart a second time by way of scratched words on parchment, and especially never with signals of fingers and silence. Ella believed that when the moment was right, she would speak again. When that moment came, she planned to divulge everything to him. But for now, it was her silent smiles and tender kisses on his cheeks, which would give him all he needed to know, to stay in her midst, to care and follow and love her.

It was enough for now.

* * *

And yet, on a night weeks into their venture, as Ella sat to one side of the velvet sofa in the parlor, warmed by the fire and cooled by the ocean breeze behind her through the open windows, she realized there was more she wanted, more she needed of Frederick. His care for her had been wonderful, immensely appreciated, but indeed, not quite enough.

He sat opposite her, his one hand warm on her bare feet as they rested in his lap, and his other, holding an ancient copy of _Treasure Island,_ propped high as he read aloud. Every hardened line of his jaw and face glowed in the firelight. His auburn hair was a twisted mess of salt air and water, sand most likely, and the aroma of food and comfort. He stared longingly into the pages of the small book, and she watched the curl of his brow and the twitch of his mustache and the grip of his hand both around the binding, and around her soft toes. She was sure she had never known a more satisfying moment in her life. And as fulfilling as it was to her senses, there was more she wanted of it, more her body ached for beneath the blanket.

Only when he slowed at the end of a long sentence, did he notice Ella scratching something into her journal with a yawn—one he could not have known, was imitated. She revealed the page of her writing to him:

_Jim Hawkins has quite worn me out. I must go to bed, I think._

He smiled with understanding, closed the book and tossed it to the side table. Then he stood from the sofa and offered her his hand. She scrambled with the blanket, landed on her bare feet, and hooked her arm inside of his instead. He walked her across the room to the stairs, and stopped at the foot of them—per usual routine.

But Ella was not so interested in the norm on this evening. She had other plans. And they began the moment she stepped up, turned, and rested both of her hands on his shoulders. She always kept them at her sides and brushed her lips across his cheek cordially. She never ventured further than holding his arm when they walked, or his hand in need of assistance. He noticed all too well, the change in her actions, the implication of her doubled touch.

"Are you alright?" he asked worriedly.

She smiled, nodded, and squeezed away the tenseness in his shoulders.

"What is it?" he tried again. "I know that look must mean something."

One more nod was her response. And then, there was nothing but the tug of his vest. He stumbled onto the first step, caught his balance by the third one, and was laughing once she had hauled him halfway up the first flight.

"_Ella,"_ his voice warned smoothly as they rounded the next flight. "I refuse to let you bring me to that room, without absolute certainty in what you're doing."

She heard him, but ignored him. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she was absolutely certain it was what she wanted. Without the ability to voice it, she showed him instead. The moment she fell inside of the bedroom with his weight pressed to hers, and the second that she stumbled back, and landed beneath him on the edge of the bed.

Comprehension met his mind, when her soft mouth finally met his.


	31. Rekindled

**Hampshire – **_midnight _**

* * *

**

With legs spread and her skirts pulled to her mid-thighs, Frederick fell to the invitation and pressed the hardness of his pants against her roughly. An inaudible whimper escaped from the back of Ella's throat, and she smiled into his mouth with parted, wanting lips. His arms were tied snuggly about her waist, his hair falling in both his eyes and hers, blinding them in the already penetrable darkness of the bedroom. She breathed in as he covered her mouth again, and when he pulled back and tried to speak.

"Darling, you are so b—"

She had stopped him with a hand over his lips. Eloise shook her head at him and touched her free index finger to her own lips, asking silently, for his equal silence. He took the hint, blinked the emotion out of his eyes, and moved past both her hands to kiss her once more.

Then they fell, ever as naturally, into the mess of sheets upon the bed where Ella had for too long, slept alone. He lifted her fragile body into his arms, carrying her from the end of the mattress to nearly the pillows, before resting atop her completely. She leaned on her elbows, watching his every tug at the buttons of her dress front. Their mouths had separated, and instead, Ella reveled in the feel of his lips against her warm forehead, and at her temple, and along the curve of her entire ear. She shivered beneath him, and tilted her head back, curls and all, when he had loosened the last blue clasp of her dress.

She felt his hand crawling on the inside of her right calf, climbing to her inner thigh under the hem of her skirts. Air flew from her lips to form a pant, and she bit her tongue. Frederick watched her carefully as he ran his hand further along her creamy skin in hide. He counted by the steps of his fingertips, the exact locations of every freckle she had, every tiny scar and scratch that he'd ever seen upon her. He knew them all, even without looking. He could stare down into her rich emerald eyes and remember the sight of her bare. She was entirely free to him in that moment.

He wanted to tell her. But he knew he couldn't break his compromise. If Eloise was forced to experience the night in silence, then he too would do exactly that. No wishes would be spoken. No praises given. And no moans would be matched with words of exhilaration. They would make love as quietly, as peacefully, as nature itself had ever intended.

One by one, he raised the layers of her dress and the cotton of her skirts from both over her head and down around her ankles. She was left with pleading nipples beneath a single white chemise. The thin sleeves fell down her shoulders. Her hair crumpled and fluttered about her face and the mattress. And her legs grew tighter about Frederick's waist as the moments began to pass more quickly. He could feel her desperation, grinding against his own middle, moist and warm and inviting.

He fell then, unable to stop it from happening. He toppled to her body, vest torn off and his shirt unbuttoned loosely, exposing his warm chest at poking intervals. Ella wrapped her arms around him completely, cradling his face to her chest, where Frederick slowly pulled down her chemise further, bringing her breasts to the ocean moonlight. Her fingers wove through his boyish curls as he nudged her aching nipple with the tip of his tongue. Her back arched when he licked in a wet circular motion. And when he finally captured the entire pebble between his lips, teeth nibbling while his tongue soothed the sweet pain—Ella fell entirely at his will, exhausted but no less wanting.

She was gone. She was his again, at last. No one—not even he who had tried in vain—could terrorize their connection now.

Once he had all but completely devoured her single breast from her chemise, Fred left the other covered, and moved down the soft cotton plane of her stomach. He kissed her warm body through the thin material, until he found her navel, and he kissed there twice, with a lick that melted the cotton to her flesh. Ella crooked her neck to see his actions the entire path downward. He ended where the chemise was slowly falling inward, at the center of body, her thighs.

For a moment, he studied the way the loose fabric was draped against her, holding her safe and tender from even him. Eloise never ceased to appear innocent, even in the most open, the most telling of situations. He loved every small bit of her, always twice more than the last bit, and never so much as the next. It was an endless, vicious cycle with him. He could never have all of her that he wanted, and for too many weeks now—what had felt like centuries—he had missed having even a piece of her. Now he had it all again. And he wasn't letting it go free for a single moment.

With gentle ease, he raised the hem of her chemise to her stomach, and stared vividly upon the softness of her body's center. The chestnut curls grew as innocently as the rest of her, the way he'd dreamed of for too many nights. She was still just as eager, still just as in tune with his every touch and kiss and silent suggestion. Ella knew as well as Frederick did, how this worked between them.

And so she was hardly surprised when he disappeared from sight and sound and reach, to fill in the void of touch, with his feathery kisses upon her soaked core. Between the folds of skin—from corner to corner, bottom to the tightened nub at the top—he tasted her, suckled at her sweetness, and made her skin and bones tingle in too many good ways. Breathy mews were response enough, and certainly enough to make him continue on strongly, more rough, his mustache awakening her every nerve ending as his tongue worked to calm the storm. Ella had missed his mouth, his hands, protective and loving on her thighs and arms and waist as he held her still with the early waves of her innermost bliss.

She released nothing, but he felt her body naturally clench around his tongue and lips. And that was the only cue he needed, to know that no moment need be spared further in wait. Frederick had already loosened his pants—and while Ella's head lolled on the bed with her closed eyes and panting mouth and reddened cheeks—he pulled from them, that which he meant to replace his tongue with. She was still aching for release, desperate to reach the height he'd nearly brought her to, when she felt something longer and thicker and altogether more desired enter her quickly.

Her head flew back in a tilt and Frederick covered her mouth to capture her gasp. He smiled upon her lips, barely kissing, but tasting with every inch that he drove further inside of her. Her mouth was like wine to douse the flames burning all over him, and he suckled her bottom lip continuously, until he felt her relax and find comfort beneath him.

But the comfort was no so. It was nothing of the sort.

Ella rested under his weight and tried not to think the thoughts boiling in her head. They were rushing too quickly though, filling her mind, images dancing in front of her eyes that sent shockwaves down the length of her arms and legs. She trembled. She loosened her hold on Frederick's shoulders and turned her eyes from the pillow's safety, back towards his face. She was full and bound by his love, but her imagination was running wild, in ways she knew it shouldn't have been in that moment. When she found his face, she knew why that was.

It was there in the embers of his fiery, lust-filled gaze, that she aimed to search for only Fred, and instead, found too much of another man. He was consumed by her heat and glossed with desire, strong and hard and raw, but that didn't make him her Frederick. That didn't make him the sweet lover he'd always been to her. That made him something else entirely, a disquieted fantasy, all conjured within her mind. She couldn't see the truth anymore, only the dreams that Rochester had always sworn he would wait for her upon. It made any other man, especially Fred, a sudden enemy, even against her own will to deny it.

He stared down at her for a long time, anxious to not breathe a word. He wanted to keep his promise. But the more seconds that passed with her unsatisfied and frightened beneath him, he found himself having to secure her well being.

"Ella. Are you alright?"

There was no response verbally. Yet through her eyes, he could see that she wasn't.

He stiffened inside of her with a nervous sigh.

"I knew ye shouldn't have allowed me to—"

His moving face was stopped by her hand on his rough cheek. He didn't finish saying what he meant to, or what he knew they both felt to be suddenly true—for very opposing reasons. He glanced at her with sadness brimming in his eyes, guilt and pain and the torture of knowing that he blamed himself completely for the scared look in her eyes. She was trying to find answers, and he was trying _not_ to ask questions.

He didn't speak another word to her. No. He wouldn't speak another word to the girl who he could see had a million horrible things to admit to him, and couldn't voice a single one. Frederick wanted silence, if only to keep the demons dancing between them, at a safe enough distance for eventual peace from the heartache.

Eloise regretted nothing but her own foolishness when Frederick pulled himself from her body and slumped to the other side of the bed. She hated herself for having fallen for the same nonsensical images in her head, and for seeing what clearly, was not in front of her. Here she had the world, the one she'd waited weeks to get back, and she was letting him roll away without an explanation. She was giving in to the beast that still seemed to have her mind muddled with fantasy and dreams and impossible whims of yearning. She was allowing herself to slowly lose Frederick, for the sake of one flash of one man's touch and kiss and face.

Before she could even protest the separation and throw herself at Frederick again, he was gone, half undressed and disappearing through the door in the darkness. She sighed angrily, with tears forming at the corners of eyes and a shattered voice box of sobs. She threw herself to the bed like a child denied and a woman scorned, tangled inside of her wrinkled and moist chemise from his mouth.

In her mind she was saying, _'I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being a fool. I do love you. More than you can know, Frederick.' _And where she lain, counting each distant star through the cloudy windows of the bedroom, Ella felt the last bit of his body's warmth lingering beneath her palm on the blankets.

She could have killed John Wilmot herself just then, again, and been utterly satisfied at last.


	32. Pebbles

**Dawn –

* * *

**

It had started with one mossy pebble. Toss and watch it break the surface of the water. Find another and toss it the same way.

But as the sun finally began to rise over the distant thunderstorm horizon of the English coast, Frederick realized that he wasn't just throwing pebbles anymore. He had somewhere in the last hour or so, steadily increased his action to stones the size of his fists. He was throwing them out into the ocean more determinately too, as if he were attempting to strike an invisible force down below, as if the water were only a veil to the demons that lay beneath, awaiting his downfall, his heartache.

He growled and swung his arm back, a smooth black stone catching the light of the sun poking through the clouds. He shifted his eyes up to where his hand was raised in the air, to the droplets of salt water trickling down his wrist, rolling under the sleeve of his long white shirt. Rage had never been his friend, only a powerful, temporary anecdote for his fears. And he was full of fears now, from head to toe and straight back to his heart where they all originated from.

_I should have never let her—!_

He stopped himself from thinking it. He breathed heavily. This wasn't her fault.

_It's mine. I should have never brought her here._

But he didn't like that either. Of course he should have brought her to the sea. It had healed her more quickly that he could imagine any doctor, any bottle of magnesium or educators of sign language would. Dorset was a small cove of wonderful simplicity. London would have only kept her ill, and for that matter, begrudging anyone who attempted to help. Here though, she was happy beyond the pain, she had engaged in regular walks and conversations and she had laughed and smiled more than he'd ever seen her do in the city before.

Ella had needed this place. She just didn't need his company to enjoy it apparently.

Frederick found his strength of will again, and shoved the stone from his hand down into the waves crashing against the breakwater wall of rocks. He watched it fall fast and heavily into the belly of the sea, consumed by his anger. It helped a little, but not as much as he had hoped.

"John _fucking_ Wilmot," he mumbled angrily.

The problem—he'd realized earlier in the darkness of morning's start—was that he was too in love with being in love with Eloise. He was too determined to be her one and only, never having stopped long enough to ponder the possibility that perhaps she wouldn't want him the same way. He was in love with a memory that had not been tarnished by other emotions, another person's love. For Frederick, it was only Ella, and only ever had been her. But for Ella, there had always been a choice needing to be made. And she still hadn't officially chosen him at all.

He knew that all too well now by the evidence in his pained chest.

She's followed him to the sea, but there was nothing which proved she hadn't come solely to avoid traditional medical care, the kind she had strongly refuted back in London. There was nothing that told him, _truly_, that she had packed her things and rode all the way here with him, to get away from her fears, uncaring about the potential for re-kindled love. There was no telling whether Ella ever really wanted what she had initiated the night before, or if she was testing the waters, throwing similar pebbles into the sea of his obvious devotion for her, to see if she felt the same anymore, before making her final decision.

That thought alone, made every bone tighten in his body. His fists were drawn with jealousy that he couldn't in any way react upon. He couldn't take it out on Ella. He knew he couldn't and wouldn't love her any less for loving him so little, as he'd clearly seen in her eyes. With a small bluish-black stone held tightly in his closed fist, Frederick stepped down from the rocks and began to wander along the shore again. He brushed the wet moss from it and felt its hard, cool exterior. The sensation frustrated him for obvious reasons.

_This is what she wants to be. Cold and made of stone, half alive. _

Frederick rolled his eyes with a tired sigh. He was heading in the direction of the cottage, but in no rush to get there. He kicked up the cold April waters with his bare feet and let his hair blow in his eyes, blinding him from the directness of the rising sun.

_The sun will never see her again if she follows that bastard._

The thought was a sad one, and it led him to a string of others, reminders of what he felt absolutely certain of. He had seen another man's leftover lust boiling in her wide green eyes. He had seen a vampire's lessons of cravings, marking her wholeheartedly. He had seen too much of that demon inside of her still, waiting and plotting and carefully turning her back to the evils he had worked so hard to save her from. And this time, as much as he knew it would hurt, Fred decided that he wouldn't try to stop it from happening.

Her choice had to be her own, spoken or not.


	33. The Boat House

**Hampshire, Dorset –

* * *

**

A few more days passed and nothing altered the severance of Fred and Ella's bond. This though, was not for lack of their personal attempts to fix things.

Each morning, for five mornings, she rose purposefully before the dawn. She lain in the bed of the room above where she knew he rested on the velvet sofa, beside the dwindling fire. The house made only small noises during this half hour each day—a dripping well faucet outside, crackling logs aflame, and the sound of the sea crashing in to shore and back out. She would stare at the beams of the ceiling, watching as they turned from black, to sapphire blue, to shades of violet and rose and lastly, golden yellow, when the sun came up.

It was only then, that she would push back the blankets and walk to the door of the room. Ella would step out barefoot, glance down from the railing of the old stairwell, and watch as Frederick woke, and dressed and eventually left the cottage. She was sure he never saw her standing above him, witnessing his newly adopted routine of silence. She was sure he wasn't paying her any mind at all, avoiding her at every cost he could think of.

But then, Ella had been wrong about Frederick Abberline before.

In truth, he knew very well where she stood studying his movements. He could feel her eyes on him every morning now, for nearly a week. He could hear her wistful breaths in the quiet cottage, and he could smell the lavender soap from her skin. He could taste the salt air and sand and garden roses when she was perched in the nook of the staircase in hide, all of the flavors radiating from her alone. And he loved it, though it killed him a little more each new day.

Without saying a word, he left her the same way too, each morning. He ruffled his knotted hair, splashed water onto his face, threw on his wrinkled white shirt, his boots, and slipped through the front door with nothing more than a squeaking yank to close it back again. He stumbled into the sunlight of the early summer coastline, walked through the narrow garden pathways that he noticed were growing less disheveled each day—no doubt by Eloise's recent interest in tending to them. He continued on until he hit the rocks on the beach. There, where she couldn't see what he was up to, was where Frederick had found the most promising of things.

It was where he had begun to work his defenses into a sort of unspoken challenge. It was where he was going to win her back to his side, where he was going to convince Eloise Rousseau at last, that she had no business being with any man other than him. It was where Frederick intended to make everything right again.

That is, if he could only stop hammering his already bruised thumb.

"Damn," he growled, hours into his work.

His aggression was being taken out on wooden boards, one by one. He shook his hand to rid the pain and sucked the tip of his thumb, before repositioning the nail into the plank.

The room around him—or shack, rather—meant everything, and for too long now, nothing at all to anyone. The walls were near to caving in with the heavy vines and wild coastal foliage he had spent days untangling from its outer shell. The door was falling off its hinges, the floorboards were cracked and broken and torn apart, revealing the sand and dirt beneath. And worst of all, the roof of the ancient boat house, was looming a mere foot above his head, threatening to do him one good deed at last.

But he wouldn't let it fall and kill him, because he couldn't. He had to solve all of these problems and rebuild the weathered shelter. He had to use his imagination and the love he still housed for Ella, to show her the depth of his every conviction, his eternal care. He had to follow the sketches on tattered paper that he had drawn, to transform the old shack for boats, into the one thing he knew she was most missing on the coast, the thing that made Ella who she truly was to not only him, but the world moving all around them.

Frederick was building Ella her own music box—most figuratively. He was building her a dance studio, with wall length mirrors and poles for her stretching, and windows that would both overlook and collect the sounds and smells and tastes of the sea. He was manufacturing everything from broken row boats and unused firewood and remnants of a life once lived by his extended family on this coast. In doing so, his hope was to ask Ella to start a new life with him, right there, where safety and love and togetherness would always prevail.

Little was he to know, that while his thoughts were so secure on recapturing her love, Ella was fighting the urge to entirely surrender to her pain.

* * *

Lifting the cotton skirts of her dress, she carefully inched her way out along the breakwater rocks, further and further into the openness of the English sea. False, stormy light covered her movements and cooled her cheeks. Her rubber boots were her one focus outside of her mind's inner battles. There, as she walked on, was where she was lost in her thoughts about Frederick and his perfect loveliness, his love and how she had been stupid enough to ruin her chances. She felt her skin tingle inside of the breeze, thinking about his lips melted to her skin and his fingertips crawling between her legs.

She froze in the middle of the rocks. Her throat was lodged with desire and heat and the need to scream. She wanted to scream out her lust to the waves. She wanted to tell the sky and the cliffs and the garden yards behind her, how much she regretted not being finished off by Frederick, not being satisfied by her mortal one and only. She wanted to spit in John's face and reveal all of her truest feelings for another. She wanted to grab him by the collar of his shirt, walk him to the stone's edge, and—

"Eloise."

Never had her thoughts broken more smoothly. Never had her skin crawled so quickly.

"Here you are."

She tried to barter with her wild imagination, but found she could only turn to the sound, to the voice, which belonged to the man standing feet away behind her. In the soot clouds of the ocean's storm, he was whole and vibrant and his skin glinted like wet stone. His eyes were steely, but held what little warmth he knew to create. Then John smiled the same whimsical smile of the undead she recalled.

"Every dark thought of my mind is clear now. I've searched you out these three long months and at last," he sighed gratefully, no breath escaping in the cold air. "I've succeeded."

In agony, in uncertainty, Ella turned away again, catching every stab of the wind against her cheeks.

"I shall tell you. I shall climb into the clouds and shout it out."

Her hands clenched at her sides and her teeth ground with the words. That's what she had wanted to do for Frederick. _Had he read her thoughts?_ Frightened by the possibility, she ignored him, or attempted to at best. She struggled only when she felt him moving closer to her, flying on the breeze, a figment, a beautiful ghost surrounding her.

"The clocks in the country continue to tick, Ella. The ones in London are worse. Never in two hundred years have they driven me so mad, never since I've known of your existence. _And now_…"

John lingered for a moment, and then stepped in nearer, one rock at a time. He stopped once he was within distance enough to reach his hand out and brush it through her long, blowing wisps of hair. Eloise did not flinch. Eloise did not turn to him, but she seemed to naturally bow to the touch, her body swaying back with his coldness, the thing she missed and altogether knew she no longer needed.

"Now, look upon me. _Oh_, what a fool. I let you go. I let them take you, heal you, and drive you away to find safety here on the sea. I do not intend to claim ignorance, that you are upset with me for it. But I can cure this. I can take you with me once more, hold you more dearly, and love you as you must know I only ever wanted to love you."

When she still did not respond, he moved her around, his hand soft on her shoulder.

"You refuse to grant me the honor of your voice, is that it? You're punishing me."

Silence owned her and she stared at him blankly, unsure of whether to unveil the truth to him or not. Ella stood beneath his hard gaze, waiting for horror to strike her a second time. She was waiting for the worst to happen, though deep down, she knew as well that it wouldn't. He wasn't going to harm her, and never had intended it before. She hated knowing it too. It would have made it easier to break his heart, if she had felt at risk of losing a limb, or life by his ferocity.

"Eloise," he tore into her thoughts once more. "Talk to me, won't you? I long to hear you speak words from that beautiful tongue."

For a moment more she stiffened, trying not to let herself be drawn in by his charms. And then she pushed her way from his hands, back three steps on the stone wall. She distanced herself properly, reached into the simple pocket of her knit coat, and steadied her eye and hand upon her small journal.

John watched her curiously as she wrote, with want of answers. They were revealed to him soon enough, scrawled with malice. He read them aloud as if proving her point:

_The only punishment has been mine own. I believed in a ghost. And for it, I have lost the one thing longed for by two men. My voice_.

He shook his head at the end of her statement, looked up from the tiny page and caught her green eyes, aglow with regret. He hated that the most.

"It can't be," his voice was shakier than he'd ever known. "I've done this to you?"

Ella nodded angrily, tore the journal from his hand, spun on her heels and moved down the rocks further. The waves crashed over each side, threatening her life completely. He studied her in confusion, simmering in anger of his own, and lastly, most importantly, utter guilt. This—he'd done this to her. He was at fault for her fall from grace, for her listless tongue. He was indeed the enemy, the devil himself, as he'd always sworn to her he wasn't.

"Ella. Please, stop!"

She didn't, but he wasn't expecting her to. So he followed—floated really—to her side. Once in front of her, he blocked the path she had been traveling to the middle of the breakwater. He was afraid to even give thought to what her intent had been prior to his arrival. He swallowed the idea and reached out for her. His hands on her arms were strong, which was easily accomplished. And beneath his grasp, she felt like porcelain china in a wobbly cupboard, standing ill against the charge of a raging bull.

"Listen to me."

Her green eyes went gray, like the storm boiling overhead.

"Let me earn whatever forgiveness you will give. Let me lie down here and beg."

Her unintentional silence, the one he had caused, was the worst sound in the world to him, in all of his many, many years. Its power brought him to his knees on the rocks. He reached for her waist and held on to what he'd always loved, staring up at her brilliant beauty, the one thing he knew he could never destroy.

"I've harmed you. I've wronged you."

Though he could not cry, Ella felt certain, by the tremble of his hands and the quiver of his stone cold lips, that he wished tears might fall despite the laws of nature and death. She could visibly see and hear and feel the pain _her_ pain had caused him. She saw his love filtering through all over again, and that was where the danger waited to capture her.

She would not fall this time.

"My darling little star. Please, let me know what to do. Show me how to win your mercy. Whatever you want, it is yours." He hugged her body to his face, her hips and thighs soft in his hands beneath her skirts, her navel pressed where his nose and mouth rested. He covered her in his ironically undying love, smothered her in it, whimpering without tears but crying in the darkest corners of his mind. "Blame me, yes do, but don't desert my truth. Or my love for you, sweet Ella. Tell me what I must do to gather clemency, and it will be done."

For a single moment, she thought about tearing him away from her. She thought about shoving him to the rocks, leaving him an immortal mess of a man, a guilty phantom in the midst of a torrential sea storm, and running to find the comfort of Frederick's arms. But John's earnestness could not be ignored, and neither could his offer of eternal debt, his willingness to pay whatever the cost to win her smiles back again, to make her once more a happy young woman. Ella knew of only one gift that could equal that of which he'd taken with her voice.

She moved her hand to the top of his head, stroking his short tresses of black hair and cradling his face that much closer to her. She held him where he wanted to be, and where she had to admit, she enjoyed him being. But not for any reason concerning love.

_No_, she thought wistfully as she closed her eyes to the breeze and inhaled his energy._ This is not __whom__ I want. This is merely __what__ I want now._


	34. A Daisy

**Dorset Coast —

* * *

**

Walking back to the cottage at the end of each day was no comfortable task for Frederick. His bones ached from constant stretching and reaching and sawing and hammering. His legs were stiff from standing and his hands were bloodied and bruised. All of him wanted to rest, to fall down to the nearest chair he could find, and stay there until he could again move to eat, or bathe, or sleep.

As the sun trickled down over the horizon behind him, he climbed the last notch in the cliff, and glanced back. It felt good, to feel the last warmth of the day, especially since the storm had passed just in time for the pinks and oranges and violets of the sunset to come out and play. For the flicker of a moment, he wished he could share it with Ella. But the moment passed, and with it, passed the majority of his romantic thoughts.

He stumbled down the sandy path, between the coastal grasses and sprouting lavender that surrounded the outside of the garden gate. From the inside of the old wooden fence, he found endless colors and aromas, all of them tended to by a single young woman. The garden was different at this time of day. In the mornings when he left the cottage in silence, without paying Ella any mind at all, there was dew everywhere, weighing down each petal or leaf or root. But in the afternoon sunset, they were dry and basking in a rich glow. And for that, they could not be ignored.

Frederick reached down and rescued a daisy from a tangle along the fence. Somehow it had grown away from the rest of the flowers, and ventured out into thorns of the rose trellis and the suffocation of the ivy vines. Once in his hand though, twirling in the fresh air, its small white petals seemed to dance and smile at him with gratitude. It was foolish, of course, to think that a flower could react to his kindness, but he enjoyed the thought and moved to the front door.

He wasn't halfway inside, when he was knocked off balance by something—no not something, but someone—being thrown at him. Ella's arms were tied to his neck and her bare toes hardly touched the floor. She seemed to float there, attached to him, hugging him. And only when he had collected his bearings enough to realize all of this at once, did he remember the small daisy still pinched between his thumb and forefinger, the one that he held at her lower back when he finally wrapped his arm around her.

It was no use asking her what was wrong, or why she was doing what she was doing. The pain of the silent response would be more than he could bear, or have her bear in return. So he let the moment drown him, whatever it was. He held her close to his tired body, breathing in enough of her vibrant energy to keep standing. He inhaled the scent of lilac and cinnamon and the ocean in her dark curls and his eyes fluttered when he felt the tip of her nose tucked into his neck.

Parting from him with a sad sort of grin, Ella mouthed the words, _'I'm sorry' _and he felt his heart crack wide open.

He shook his head and whispered, "Don't be."

She nodded fiercely and brushed away the freshest tear, of what Frederick could see, had been one of many before he'd come back to the cottage. He moved his hand out to touch her cheek, but Ella took his hand in hers instead, and pulled him toward the small kitchen table where only her journal and a pen waited. She sat him in one seat and took the other beside it for herself. Her hand never left his, and for it, his heart never stopped aching.

He watched her find a blank page, and then sat patiently while she wrote. His thoughts wandered to all possible meanings of the situation, of the way her hand tightened around his as she scribbled more deliberately into the journal, and the way she had leaped upon him in the doorway, like a desperate lover, and not a week long ghost. His wondering was hushed only by her words, when she pushed the book to him and he read:

_I'm so sorry for everything I've done to you. I'm sorry for going to him, for lying, for our night a week ago. I've ruined your heart. I've broken you, haven't I?_

Fred looked up from the page with a torn smile on his face and said, "No. You haven't."

Ella did not believe him, though. She was frustrated by his will to protect her from the guilt she felt was her own to soak in. She pulled the journal back and wrote for him again, faster, more heatedly. And once again, he read her words quietly to himself.

_I know how horrible I've been. You cannot keep hiding it from me. I only seek now to earn your forgiveness. _

The power of his hand squeezing hers, and the fire in his eyes when he turned them to hers again was answer enough. "If it's what you wish for, you must know that you've had it all o' this time." She took a breath at last to clear her conscience a little more, before he asked, "What is this about?"

With a sigh and a scratch of her pen, she answered:

_You loved me once before, when I did not deserve to be loved by you. I'm not at all sure that I deserve your heart any more now, but I have to know. _

_Do you?_

He stilled at the two words, and the mark of questioning that followed. But he paused only in wonderment, not at all in debate. There was no question to be asked of his heart. The answer had for too long been the same.

Frederick looked into her eyes, trapped in the forest as always and said clearly, "I love you, Ella. I don't know how _not_ to love ye anymore." Then, he moved his freed hand towards her cheek, and instead of cupping it gently or brushing her skin, he tucked the small daisy behind her ear, into her hair. "I'm mad with love for you."

She smiled, and a tear fell from the corner of her eye onto the back of his hand when he moved it from her face. He sat before her, awaiting the next scratch of her pen, awaiting the words he could practically hear, lodged in her own throat and desperate to be released. He sat in solemnity, hands to himself and aching to reach out for her. He sat still as stone as the minutes passed and she neither did nor said nor wrote anything. Ella only continued to cry, tear for salty tear.

Finally he had to end it. He had to come about and ask her. "Ella. Do you—?"

But there was no room to finish. There was no oxygen at all to breathe in when she swept it all away and flew from her chair, from the room altogether. He was as muted as she in that moment. Frederick could not think to stop her, or penetrate the eerie silence of her exit with the rest of his words. He could do nothing more than watch.

Watch her go.

A door slammed shut upstairs, locked. Something struck the floor above his head with an angry thud—her journal. His entire body tensed, worse than it had from his day of labor. Under his breath, he cursed himself for being a fool to believe.

* * *

And upstairs, where he could not see to know, or stand to observe, Ella was half cast over the railing of the balcony. She gripped the old wood with all the power she could muster, and stared longingly out upon the now lavender cast sky. The sun had gone away. The stars were poking out through the last of the storm clouds, the moon the same, lighting up each tear that rolled down her cheeks.

She was lost to the bittersweet beauty of the truth she longed to hear. He loved her. Frederick, her love, in turn kept his heart open and bound to her every move. He was as subservient to her as ever, and desperate, she knew it, to see the words in return from her own hand. But she could not. She would not, yet.

Where she kept her feelings for him trapped, she too kept the secret of her outrage, her blunt dismissal of their conversation. He would not guess why she had run away to her room. He was assuming, she knew for certain, that her heart was still torn and her decision still difficult. It was not so, though. She was not crying for her heart cut in two and in the possession of different men. She was not in agony because of wanting too much and in need of losing half. She was not here, dangling off the balcony rails, gasping for air and sanctuary and peace of mind, because of her greed any longer.

No. That was all over with.

Ella was crying if only because she still could. She reveled in the power of that one emotion, sadness, and everything that went with it—the heavy exhalations and inhalations and river's worth of teardrops on her face and hands. She made memories of these passing moments of pain, until the sound of the moving air beside her, made the skin on the nape of her neck crawl. She raised her head and wiped her eyes clean, knowing what she would find in the wake of the breeze.

"Shed some for me. Won't you, pet?"

Ella sniffled and reacted to his face, close to hers and leaning closer.

John moved his hand to her cheek then, and with one frigid swipe, took away the last full tear at the corner of her eye. It sat upon the tip of his finger like a trembling star lost in the universe. And when it rolled away and disappeared from sight, he sighed, knowing what it all really meant.

"He loves you more than I had yet ventured to guess. You are indeed settled then."

Her eyes shifted with curiosity as to what he'd heard, and he smiled one wicked smile.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, you wit. I conjured no particular talent. The walls of this old place are fractured for an ear or two."

A little grin wandered to the corner of her mouth and stilled. She began to pace on the small balcony, her smile fading away quickly as she brushed between his body and the door to the room, anxious. Her stomach was visibly in knots and her hands were clenched into fists. She was flush with uncertainty and in certain places, on her neck and upper arms and nose, pink with readiness.

"Eloise," John spoke with assurance. "You'll be alright, here beside me. I wouldn't let you suffer. You know that."

She paused and stole a glance, nodding.

"I'll take perfect care of you."

That was easy for her to believe. John had never, _not_ taken care of her. He had never, _not_ seen to her happiness or contentment or care. He had never let her down in anyway, even when she felt sure that he had. Even then, he had come to find her. He had come back and left her breathless and somehow smiling.

As he moved towards her again, cold and clever-tongued and as soft as stone could possibly be, Ella felt her knees weaken and her bones crush. She sensed that the look in his eyes was the one she had waited for all afternoon. She somehow understood that the silence between them, whether unchangeable or not, was right and routine. She felt, when he reached out and wrapped his arm firmly about her waist, pulling her tiny form into his hard one, that she was safe, perhaps the safest she could possibly be under the circumstances.

His hand on the slope of her lower back chilled her, made her eyes close tenderly. His face, smooth like marble and cool like ocean rocks, brushed her cheek and collected her warmth, making her skin tingle all over, inside and out. His voice, when he whispered, "Take a breath," was like ice on glass, perilous. His lips, as they found the curve of her neck, tucked inside of a mass of unruly locks, were both seizing and soothing, all at once.

His memory, floating around her, suddenly consuming her, was heartbreaking. And she hated herself for it, for breaking him. She hated taking advantage of what and who he was. She hated knowing that her debt to him, the replacement of the heart she had stolen back and the clocks she had neglected to freeze for him, would never be paid fairly. She hated knowing that she had caused a man who could feel nothing at all, to truly _feel, _daggers and bullets and invisible tears.

But the self-loathing was cut short, pierced, by the realization of what was happening to her, what was about to take place.

His teeth—razors of love and agony and surrender—when they severed the burning sweetness of her flesh, tasting and then taking, were like nothing Ella had ever known. Like nothing she could remember feeling at his first attempt. They were something else entirely, a new revelation of sharpness, a retaliation of her mortal skin. And she could not deny even for a second, even though her thoughts were all on Frederick and her love for him, that the surge of John's poison and pleasure inside of her, was faultless, flawless, and the best _last_ memory any human could take with them.

For it, Eloise Rousseau died smiling.


	35. Welcome

**Midnight—

* * *

**

The bliss was gone, outweighed and replaced by a pressure against her lungs. It tormented Ella, the tightening ache, the need to find oxygen in the darkness of the spell. She had known the frustration and pain of not being able to speak. But this was different. This was a restriction that could not be subdued with notes on paper.

She was drowning in an imaginary ocean of drought and heat. She tried to gasp, but nothing fled her lips. Her arms flailed where she could not see them, and her feet moved, kicking at the space around her. And then, in the middle of the firestorm of blankness, there was a prick of something ice cold on her palm, and the back of her hand.

Ella stopped moving and relaxed into the pain.

Stone cool fingers climbed along her wrist, soothing her distress and lessening the unbearable burn. They crept to the bend of her forearm and caressed the inflamed vein she could feel there. Her head fell back down, to wherever she was, and she was in peace. The tips of those fingers were like magic, stroking along her skin for what felt like miles. They slowly mediated the curse of what she'd gotten herself into. They were the only antidote for her present state.

And what had she gotten herself into? She tried to remember. She tried to push away the fog in her mind and find the answer. There was a moment, on a bed, where she had been stripped and carried beneath the weight of a man in love. And she had ruined that with the distant glow in her eyes, thoughts of another.

Then there had been another, the other man in love. There had been wet rocks and rain and a tragic reunion. There had been pleas of otherworldly forgiveness and two hands holding her close and in the end, there had been a bargain in return for that man's mercy.

Somewhere, there had been a small flower tucked into her hair and the arms of that warm, living man in love. They had held her even in the midst of silence and confusion, and promised her the world and his whole heart, for the rest of his days. But that hadn't been good enough.

No.

There had been a request on parchment. There was the look of surrender in the eyes of that cold man, that other man. He had given up. He had let her have what she wanted with only a snarl between her notes. And then, with extended convincing, he had also agreed to do the one thing he'd wanted to do for her all along. Though, Ella knew, he had hoped she would have chosen to cross the boundaries of the human world for_ him_, not for the other man, her most cherished Inspector. She remembered all of that, one way or another.

But was it all too late to matter? Was it pointless, in comparison to the throbbing that shot northward from her lower back to her highest vertebrae?

It was then, with those same cold fingertips pressing into the flesh of her upper arms, pinning her to the bed against her struggle to break free, that Ella felt her throat ache, and then moisten at last. Her lungs still burned and every knot of her spinal column was being sliced with imaginary daggers. But she could hear herself coughing and moaning and breathing.

She was alive.

No.

This wasn't the pain of life. This was that other place, the in between, as John had so rationally put it. This was the purgatory of half death and life, a room where patience is a virtue and a forgotten practice. Her screams—as she began to find she could scream again—were evidence enough of this. The only thing she wasn't doing was shedding tears. Even there, in complete agony, drowned in sorrow and regret and fear, her cheeks were dry and her eyes were clear of moisture. She opened them, finally realizing that they had been closed and responsible for the blackness around her. But still, no beads of salty pain seeped from her irises. No proof of what she was feeling arrived.

In the back of her mind, she heard him say, _"Shed some for me. Won't you, pet?" _

And she understood completely now. Ella knew in that moment of vibrant guilt, that she would never see another tear fall from her eye, or onto the back of Frederick's hand as he soothed her. She would never be whole enough again to feel that way or express herself to that extent. She would be just like him—just like John Wilmot—begging for whatever forgiveness she would ever need, on hands and knees, with every depth of honesty and none to wipe away.

The irony of this truth, was that all she wanted to do was cry into the arms of someone, anyone willing, the first person to reach out and say—

"Eloise. I'm here, love."

She turned her face to the voice, and found those same tearless black eyes. The back of his cool hand ran the length of her face, wiping the distress from every fiery pore.

"You're going to be alright now. The fever has only just broken."

Ella was still, locked in his gaze and completely unconcerned with where she was or when he'd taken her from the cottage. She wanted more than anything to trust what he was saying, that she would 'be alright'. But how foolish was that. Of course she wasn't going to be alright. She was never going to be anything but the_ nothing_ that he was to the world, forever and ever and e—

"Ella," he broke her silent debate. "Where is the pain? Tell me."

_Does he actually expect me to answer him? _She thought with dark humor running in her veins._ I haven't spoken in three months. What makes him think that if I just start moving my lips together and wish on a bright enough star and close my eyes for effect, that I'll be capable of saying_—

"My head," she blurted out.

Then she gasped and covered her mouth with a weak hand. Her wide eyes, as green as they'd ever been, sparkled from behind her fingers as she stared at him in shock. John merely smiled and reached out to pull her hand into his, chilling it from the fever.

"Speak to me again," he whispered.

But she shook her head with a fear stricken expression.

"Come then," John pleaded with an icy kiss on her warm knuckles. "Speak all of those witty words of yours to me. I've been so lonely without them, all of these long months."

Ella tightened her lips and shut her eyes, desperate to ignore the newfound pleasure of her spoken words, for the pain again. It didn't work as well as she hoped. For it was hardly a matter of seconds in silent passing, that she felt those same marble lips from her hand, press upon her cheek, reawakening her from nothing really. He didn't ask her to speak this time. He only lingered, softly kissing his way around her entire face, across her forehead and down each of her temples. Somehow, some way that Ella could not explain, or think to focus to explain to herself—John was healing the pound in her head with every brush of his mouth. The coolness of his lips was doing exactly what his fingertips had done to her.

"How—?" she stopped, her nerves rising at the strange sound of her voice. She'd forgotten it so well and whispered, "How are you doing that?"

He stopped with a kiss on the top of her head and smiled into her curls.

"Easily," he said. "I act to heal, the very same way in which you speak."

Beneath the sound of his voice and the tranquility of his lips, Ella breathed a slow breath and relaxed her every muscle.

Then she asked, "What way is that?"

And his response was as simple as the cure for her ailment of mind.

"_Naturally_," he replied. "Nature has its intentions for even the dead, Eloise."

He made her smile. He made her eyes open clearly, soothed and calm and grateful for the pain being gone. She was so peaceful looking, in fact, that he didn't expect what she asked, when she finally did.

"I'm dead now too. Aren't I?"

There was no way not to answer her. He lifted her arm into his hands and kissed away the fever from every pore he could. At her shoulder, he studied the slowly fading mark that his teeth had torn into her neck. Her flesh was raw, charred, pink and crimson. Then with remorse, he caught her eyes at a sideways glance.

"Nearly," he said and tucked a curl behind her ear. "It is as I told you. There is one more thing that you must—"

"Yes," she cut him off. "I know."

His eyes were contemplative over her face and form in the bed for a few moments. He shifted them around the room next, to his coat thrown over the back of a chair and Ella's shoes sitting neatly on the floor. This had been the only place he could think of to take her when the time had come—a private room at the end of a long and empty corridor in the _Rose and Crown Inn_. It was in town, but it was not the room at the Inspector's familial cottage. It was safer here, for both her and him, and also for Frederick himself.

John knew well enough, after two hundred years of previous encounters, to know that the process of what he was doing to Ella was the most dangerous situation any mortal could find themselves a part of. Whether by mistake or foolish intention, they would be within arm's reach of death by the mouth of beautiful wickedness, as in Ella's case. She could not be trusted now, even halfway to his world. She was too fresh in the face of mortality. She was too close to life, and far too close to her own demise, to be trusted near the tracery of even Frederick Abberline's veins.

He could only allow Ella his own for now.

And he did, with his arm raised and the sleeve of his tunic rolled back to his elbow. It was smooth as stone and flawless in the candlelight of the room around her. Ella was mesmerized, watching from the pillows beneath, as he sunk his own teeth into the ashen flesh at his wrist, severing a vein just for her. She crawled towards him, out of nature's intent for her, indeed. The blood pooled at the incision and dribbled around the curve of his wrist, waiting to be caught in her mouth. And in a sudden explosion of hunger, Ella reached for his arm and tugged it closer. Her tongue reacted to the sweet, lush taste first, as the tip touched his skin and licked clear the escaping droplet of blood.

"Drink more, love."

A shiver of poetic pleasure crept down his spine with the necessary demand, one she followed beautifully, the way he'd for too long imagined witnessing. John attempted to maintain his proper control, even as Ella's mouth covered the sliced flesh of his wrist, and even still when he felt the prick of her desperate human teeth sinking in further.

She stole his energy, his dark existence for herself. She drank as greedily as a new born babe to the world, desperate for the bodily nutrients of the one who had given her life - or death, rather. Her forest eyes shown ravenously and he felt it in every corner of his body, where she drained him slowly and regretted nothing for it. Their pact had been signed in blood, straight across her scarlet lips of stone.


	36. I Heart Him

**Hampshire, Dorset — **_2 am _**

* * *

**

"Ella, NO!"

He lunged forward after her in his dreams, gasping for air.

With eyes wide open, Frederick realized where he was and that what he'd seen and felt and imagined, wasn't there at all. There were no cliffs before him. And there was no ocean to swallow a surrendering girl whole. Eloise was not there with him. It was only the moonlight that cast shadows on the stone walls, the fireplace and the blankets that covered his legs. He had fallen asleep at some point, between the slam of a door on his heart and now. He had dreamed a horrible thing and was sweating, across his neck and shoulders and upper lip. He wiped away the moisture in the bristles of his mustache and collected his bearings before getting up from the sofa, before going to the stairwell.

Part of him should have been asking _'why?'_ Part of him should have been dying a little more with each step he gained under his bare feet, each and every inch higher that he climbed to the second floor of the cottage. Part of him should have been coherent enough to notice the small, previously fallen daisy from Ella's hair that was crushed beneath his foot on the stairs. Part of him should have been rational, but he wasn't. Frederick was acting completely on his intuition, with not a single reservation in what she might think of it.

He made it to the door of her room, raised his hand slowly and knocked.

Silence responded.

So he knocked again, foolishly, and this time with, "Eloise?"

The quiet storm of his mind and her condition prevailed. She did not speak to him, and he remembered all too suddenly why that was. _How had he forgotten such a thing in his nightmares_? She did not invite him in for an obvious reason. But he could not hear the patter of delicate dancer's feet coming to greet him, either. This was his sign to turn and go, to leave her to herself and find time in the morning for words. Not to pound on the door harder and throw out irrational pleas.

"This is madness," he shouted. "I can't hear your voice, and now you won't even look at me?"

He should have known it wouldn't work and should have known better than to keep on.

"Ella. However I'm doing wrong by you, tell me. But this has to stop!"

His fist went silent and his head hung down between his shoulders in agony, forehead pressed to the oak door. He breathed in deep and flattened his hands against the panels of the doorway, balancing his twisted mind for a moment or two. He listened intently to the sounds from the opposite side of the wall and could hear nothing more than a slight buzz of the wind on curtains, as if the window or balcony doors were open. He pictured her lying there, wide eyed at the moon, inhaling every bit of his anger's violent sound on her door. He imagined her ignoring him and regretting her every decision and—

And then he felt something touch his foot, a sheet of parchment paper.

He lifted it from the floor where it had flown out from under the doorway, and raised it to the moonlight hiding in the rafters. He studied the notes scratched onto the page, Ella's words—words he had never before seen. They weren't written to him, but it seemed, _about_ him instead.

**_Frederick looks at me and I can feel him asking me to admit it. I want to. _**

**_I want to __say it__, though. He deserves more than words on paper, for this._**

**_I want my voice.__ I need it. _**

Frederick didn't know where to change his smile to a pout or where to find happiness in the sadness of her personal pleas. He touched the pressed ink, the heavy black lines that had both mentally erased and demanded certain thoughts. She didn't just want her voice back. She needed it, for something concerning him. And he wanted to know what it was. Not later and not in the morning, but _now_.

He knocked harshly, with an anxious grin plastered on his face. He called her name, but received only the previous response for his demands. Another piece of paper from her journal flew beneath the door, followed by another. He lifted them from the ground at his feet and then immediately opened the door to the room.

And there was his answer. She was gone.

The balcony doors were thrown back, open to welcome the warm night breeze of the coast and the moon and the twinkle of every summer star. The curtains blew in and out of the room, cascading down across his body as he moved onto the old balcony. He could not see her down below on the beach, or in the garden at the opposite corner of the house. She had left the room at some point and tiptoed out of the cottage in the middle of his involuntary slumber.

But she had left him clues, pages and pages of hints that flooded the room, that said she meant him no harm at all, and only wanted to be with him forever. Frederick sat in the middle of the bedroom floor, surrounded by the papers of her journal that had come loose from the binding when she had thrown it across the room—as he had guessed. Some of them were short in nature but full in meaning, while others went on and on for lines and came to only one simple conclusion:

**_Frederick Abberline is the__ only__ man I need. _**

**_I do __not__ love John._**

**_I only want Frederick. _**

**_I love him. _**

**_I love him. _**

**_With all my heart, I love him…_**

This last one, with the words suffocated by a barrier of tiny inked hearts, was his favorite of all. This was the one that Frederick folded over once neatly and tucked into the pocket of his shirt. This was the one he carried with him the rest of the night and into the morning, wandering in nervous circles through the cottage, waiting for her, waiting for a clue that she hadn't left for good, while consistently unfolding and re-reading and folding it back.

With all of his heart.


	37. Lure

**Rose and Crown Inn - **_April 23, 1890_**

* * *

**

**_All my past life is mine no more,  
The flying hours are gone,  
Like transitory dreams given o'er,  
Whose images are kept in store  
By memory alone…_**

Whispering to himself, John sat in a chair near the window of the room, the curtain tucked back into his hand revealing the quiet of the sleeping town below. The cobblestone streets were glossed with summer dew, sparkling under the lampposts. The black salt waters of the coast drifted inward and back out, against the dock and away, rocking boats endlessly. And as he watched two men wander from the alleyway opposite the Inn, both of them heading into the yellow of a nearby tavern's light, a smile crossed his lips.

Under his breath, he concluded:

**_Then talk not of inconstancy  
False hearts, and broken vows  
If I, by miracle, can be  
This live-long minute true to thee.  
It is all that Heav'n allows…_**

A rustle of sheets advanced on a small voice in the shadows of the room.

"I've missed the sound of your sonnets."

The curtain fell from his hand and John turned.

"That was beautiful."

His eyes traveled through the darkness, finding hers alive, with an emerald afterglow of an afterlife. Ella rested on her forearm, half lounging under the blankets, but staring directly at him through a veil of tea-colored spindles. She was a vision of untouchable beauty, and as ever before, he was drawn directly to her side.

Standing by the bed, he raised her hand from the mattress and touched her cheek at the same time. For whatever reason, whether for desire or comfort, Ella nestled her face further into the palm of his cool hand with a brush of her sleek lips.

"Hours have past. I feared you might never wake again." He stroked her thick hair. "You seem well, though."

She pulled back to look up into his eyes.

"I'm hungry."

With a faint laugh, he held her powder-soft face in both of his hands, leaning down to steal a kiss upon her forehead.

"Ah. You remain _immortally_ clever, I see."

Ella smiled and covered his hands with hers. She crawled weakly on the bed, on her knees, reaching his same height from where he stood. As their eyes were leveled, she stole a glance over his shoulder, outside of the window to see the moon falling slowly from the sky. Her nerves rose and she pouted, returning to his waiting eyes.

"Will you show me—?" she stopped herself. "I don't know how to..."

And he understood well enough to nod in reply to her unfinished questions.

John left one last caress on her cheek and stole away a final spark from her evergreen eyes, the ones that—with her burden of rebirth—had grown as dense as any real forest could. He grabbed her coat from the bedside chair and wrapped her in it tightly, knowing what purpose it would serve her without proper nourishment, in the cold of night. Then he took her hand in his, smooth porcelain against strong stone, and led her from their room of secrets to the world outside, the one that housed so many more for her to discover.

Ella uncovered the first of these on her own, standing on the corner below, desperately pulling at the hood and thick sleeves of her coat to find warmth of any kind. She was sure she had never been so cold in her human life, if it was comparable at all to her new one. The feeling of ice in her pores crawled from her toes to calves to her hips, then higher to her elbows and ears. Strange as it was though, she did not breathe a breath of chilled air or stutter when she spoke, and for that matter, she did not tremble or shake either. She merely froze, from the inside out, and right back in.

"What's wrong with me?"

Shifting on his feet, John stared back at her, worriedly. He pulled off his own coat when he saw the overly-pallid color of her cheeks, and threw it around her shoulders, holding her close.

"Nothing," he murmured in her ear. "This is how you know you must feed, Ella."

"Does this happen to you, too?"

With her question, silence fell and his answer refused to come. He moved away from her slowly, and concentrated on the doorway of the tavern. Ella wasn't sure if he was ignoring her or if he hadn't heard the inquiry. She was too miserable and cold and starving far too badly to give it another thought. She stood idly by and watched him, watching out for what she knew was an easy victim.

John stalked. He prowled at the building's corner like a lion in the shadow of night. He touched the brick briefly, pondering the territory he'd chosen, and then he began to move again, back and forth at Ella's feet. His eyes never left the glowing doorway of the tavern. Not until the moment came, and it swung open, revealing the wobbling flesh of a completely unsuspecting man.

"_There,"_ she heard him whisper under his breath.

Her eyes went to the man in question, and in ways she couldn't understand or describe, they were fixed upon him from that moment on. Ella moved from the building's cover, brushing past John enough to contemplate her prey as he stumbled around in the wet street.

"Go to him, Eloise."

She stiffened at the sound of John's voice behind her, instructing.

"I don't know how to—"

"You will," he interrupted. _"Go."_

Anxiously, she glanced back over her shoulder, only to find the corner empty and her supposed mentor gone. She moved her eyes around the hazy street for a moment, hoping to find him in hide somewhere. He did not show, but the scent of a drunken man yards away and moving, tugged more strongly at her senses than John's whereabouts.

Ella's eyes were carried back to the man, and before she could stop herself or wonder why it was happening at all, she felt herself begin to drift. She was weightless, a feather floating in the icy air. She was off the ground, following after the sweet aroma of thinned blood in jetting veins. And the next thing she was aware of, were her feet back on solid cobblestone where she was hidden in the shadowed edge of an alleyway.

Someone was speaking quietly.

"_He's coming, Ella. Be seen to him."_

It was John, commanding softly in her ear. She turned around, expecting to see him. But he was not there. It was only her and the sound of a man's footsteps approaching on the sidewalk. Her hands drew into fists and her boots scuffed the ground as she moved carefully into the light of the single streetlamp. The cold was all but forgotten as her skin began to tingle with the power of the scent driving her, the one of the handsome man, alone and fumbling in her direction.

"_Do not attack him, darling." _

His voice returned and she focused, suddenly aware of its origin. John was in her mind, from wherever he waited and studied. He was guiding her like a ravenous puppet on a string.

"_You must entice him. Lure him to you. " _

She wasn't sure she'd ever known how to be alluring. Ella had been good at a few things in her short life, but being a temptation to men, at least with her knowledge of it, was not one. And yet, it took little more than a swivel of her head, a toss of her thick brown tresses in the moonlight and a whisper through kissable lips, to attract this man.

"Good evening, sir."

He wavered to a halt, smirking.

"Miss," he then answered with his hat pressed to his heart.

Ella fluttered her lashes and gave him hints of her fierce green eyes. She moved into the warmth surrounding him on the corner, drowning herself in his breath laced with heavy drink. She wanted him to believe anything, the most obvious truth about her greeting in the night. And as she wished it to be in her mind, he began to speak the excuse she had thought up, as if it had been given to him directly through the entrapment of her stare.

"Walking alone this late?" He hiccupped a little and smiled at her. "No lady should find herself without proper company to ward off the evils of the night."

A devilish smirk crossed Ella's lips.

"You are too right," she replied softly. "Perhaps you would see me home safely, sir?"

The man stood straighter at her request, expanded his chest a bit and held his arm out for her to take.

"It would be an honor."

The drink had clearly gone to his head, whoever he was. This left Ella humored on the inside, as she stepped close to him and wove her arm through his, hooked for his enticement and her certainty of devour. They walked along for a few moments, just the same, offering one another their names and speaking of the dreariness in the late evening air. And though she tried to ignore it for patience's sake, the scent of him—rich and toxic and moist—was everywhere, all over her. It was impossible to ignore the thirst, her tongue salivating inside of her cold mouth.

But she didn't have to. He was clumsy in his footing at the following street corner and when he tripped on his own boot, he fell towards the outer wall of a closed notary's office. He was laughing in embarrassment when Ella collapsed on him, slightly.

"Pardon me for this horrid display."

He hiccupped again and she breathed a wicked laugh on his neck.

"I shall think nothing of it, Mr. Anderson."

Ella felt his body growing hard beneath her, out of nature's own instinct for man. It made her hunger fly out of control for some reason. Her hands on his chest caressed gently and she extended her lips to his jaw, her kiss light and taunting.

"_Oh,"_ he mused with a twinkle in his eye. "Is that the sort of company you're after, lassie?"

She bit into her own lip with a bat of her lashes. And then she heard John again, orchestrating the madness of her first feeding.

"_Do not play with your food, Eloise. Have mercy on that poor bastard."_

Forcing herself to hold back a laugh, she moved to his neck, inhaling the warmth and freshness of what she could see boiling under his skin. His vein was throbbing in ecstasy that wouldn't come. And because she knew this, something in her stirred a smile on her lips. It was those same lips which bared, in the shadow of his collar and jaw, a pair of razor-sharp incisors. Ella could feel her fangs, see their shadow on his neck, and with her fear washed away by her immortal thirst, she memorized that first difficult incision made by them to human flesh.

The man howled as he sobered with his shock. Ella sunk further into the heart of his vein, savoring the burn on her tongue.

William Anderson struggled for a few moments, trying to decide whether he was being seduced with danger or taken victim by beauty. He writhed against the wall and beneath Ella's delicate hands, which were stronger than either of them could have imagined. He gasped for air and could find none. He bled profusely, on and on, into the softness of her mouth. And even when he had closed his eyes and fallen unconscious under her grip, Ella could not stop herself. She could not retract her teeth or ignore the blood flowing still between her suckling lips.

This was where John appeared.

"That's enough."

She could not open her eyes, but she could not deny that he was there, right beside her, instructing her to let the wonderful taste go.

"Ella. He's going to die. That's enough, darling."

John's hand on her arm, as smooth as his voice, was the only thing to win against her desperation. She forced herself to release the man in her hands, and half fell against the wall herself, breathing deeply and licking the last drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. She could feel no remorse above the deliriousness. She could find no guilt in what she'd done, only proof of her new spirit. She could not deny how alive she suddenly felt, how powerful and euphoric and full.

She opened her eyes to find John smirking at her.

"And so," he teased viciously in the quiet of the night. "The muse becomes the hunter."

Ella smiled the smile of welcomed sin.


	38. Dreams

**Dorset Coast – ****

* * *

**

The dawn saw Frederick Abberline come and go with sleep, consistently. He tried to stay awake at any cost, to be there when Ella returned. But as the blues and violets of early morning rolled across the coast, so too did his exhaustion prove itself. He eventually took to sitting at the small kitchen table, and then to relaxing into the embrace of the chair beneath him.

Somewhere along the way, his eyes closed and he drifted off -

_Where he landed was a good place. It was that same English coast in autumn, with leaves tumbling down the beach and a breeze so strong that it blew his clothes in all different directions. He was strolling along the path headed to shore, with the season's last daisy twisting back and forth between his thumb and index finger. _

_He was smiling, alive and happy. Then he heard her voice above the crash of the waves, and he was at last, content._

_"Come here and kiss me, Frederick!" _

_ She was dancing between seashells in the rolling surf, kicking up sand under the hem of her white chemise with her arms spread as wide as the horizon would allow. The sunset oranges and yellows cascaded down her porcelain arms and back, where her thick brown curls laid in a braided twist off her neck. Ella was laughing and calling his name and as innocent as he'd ever seen her before. _

_Ever._

_So he walked a little faster and grinned a little wider on his way down the cliff for the beach. And when he landed barefoot in the breaking waves at her side, he wrapped his arm firmly about her waist, pulled her graceful body hard against his and smothered her with his mouth. He didn't need any more incentive than the smile he felt on her lips when their tongues fought for control. _

_He was whole, for once in his entire life, unbendable, untouchable. This was something Eloise Mae Rousseau had accomplished, after too many years of his self-loathing misery. She had him, however she wanted him, whenever and wherever. All she had to say to capture him was—_

_"I love you."_

_Her words, mumbled breathlessly on his lips were too wonderful to fathom. Frederick moved back slowly, but did not loosen his grip on her body. He held her safely there, against the rush of the ocean and the brewing winds of a harvest moon. He looked down upon her face and the expression it contained, of proper earnestness and elation and worship. _

_"I love you, dearest Frederick."_

_Her fingertips brushed over the lips he could not think straight enough to use. She rested her head on his shoulder, locked to the crook of his neck, where she left kisses hidden in his unruly sideburns and the locks of hair that twirled about his ear. Ella sedated his every nerve and reawakened his every last emotion. _

_The only thing she didn't do was spare him from his own unsuspecting destruction. For where she could not see, to know that he saw, Frederick's eyes were fixed down upon the slope of Ella's neck, where her hair had been pulled to the opposite side and left that nearest to his lips, exposed. It smelled sweeter than anything he had known before. Underneath his hand's caress, it was softer, more susceptible to harm and passion too, given the right avenue. _

_He tucked his face down against her neck and kissed, deeply. She shivered around him and moaned into his ear._

_Then, as he growled 'I love you too' into her fresh pores, Frederick felt something very different than desire overwhelm him. The bones in his body began to react to the touch of his mouth on Ella's skin. The flesh covering his tensing muscles went rigid and sleek with need. His senses were wild and famished. _

_He bit into his perfect flower, his daisy, and she cried with lust... _

The next sound he heard above her whimpering pleasure in his ear, was the sound of his chair tumbling backwards from the table and striking the floor. He went with the force of his own fear, pushing himself from sleep, from that dream tangled with nightmares. He landed in a crumpled mess, sweating with what he assumed was horror, as his eyes shifted nervously around the kitchen floor.

The cottage was faint with light, although dawn was rising somewhere behind the rainclouds. Everything was painted in gray and silver shadows, teasing him with imminent danger. From where he sat looking up at the room around him, he called out Ella's name, hoping for some restoration in her locality. But she did not answer, and he needed no more of a sign than that. Because Abberline too often took everything in his mind as a sign of evil forces looming in the woodwork of his life, he was off the floor, and out the door and running up the hill towards town without a second thought.


	39. The Cure

**Downtown Hampshire - **_Noon _**

* * *

**

"Do it again."

A dark chuckle preceded the encore of what Ella had been wordlessly amazed by. John stole a glance of her from his side, beneath the cover of his umbrella and hers, and then he turned back ahead to focus on the rain covered street of patrons.

They moved about, men and women and children of the English coast, endlessly. From shop to shop, business to business, they wandered in their daily routines. Young girls carried bundles of ribbon and fabric under the helm of their umbrellas, and well dressed gentleman passed by them with kind smiles. Mothers ordered their children to exhibit manners and fisherman tumbled out of pubs between shifts on the docks. This was a typical midday, and only Ella and John were truly out of place here.

With one energy-claiming stare cast over the busied street, he defined their rarity even more. Ella's gasped with excitement as dozens of people slowed, one by one. They did not stop moving, but their pace was lax and their bodies wavered slightly, for all of a single moment in time. This was a moment that only two of their nature could see, or feel, or ever know occurring. She breathed a small laugh of bewilderment and John's attention was cut, rendering the crowds to their normal speed once more. Time had lingered long enough for him to collect the energy of their good health and spirits, of their life.

"Don't they feel anything?"

He sighed with his own curiosity. "A bit lightheaded, I suppose."

Ella's eyes widened and she caught his under their umbrellas.

"That's it?"

"No." He gave her a sidelong grin. "The energy serves a purpose when stolen."

"Show me."

Her interest satisfied him. He took her by the hand and led her towards a patch of wildflowers on the side of the cobblestone road. The lavender and chamomile and red clovers all sat closed and limp with the rain piling on their petals. They were drowned by the heavy, unfamiliar summer rains of this place. Their roots remained, but they were for worse or better, near lifeless.

John knelt down to the wet ground and Ella did the same, bunching the skirts of her dress. He did not say a word or look at her this time. He drew his hand out and placed it down upon the soaked soil of the abandoned roadside garden. His long, pale fingers sank a little into the mud. Ella watched John, who closed his eyes peacefully and hummed something in the back of his throat. Then, when something appeared from the corner of her eye, she turned her gaze to the flowers. And that's when she knew, _truly_, that the world she had entered was not as terrible as so many suspected.

As she had once suspected.

There, beneath the palm of John's hand, the rosemary and iris rose up from their fallen stems and grew strong and vibrant in the rain. The geraniums and daisies met somewhere in the middle of the energy he was releasing, and their petals seemed to kiss in the stormy fog and mist. He was bringing this small plot of land, on this single hill, in this one coastal town of England, back to life, methodically. He was doing with these flowers what Ella knew he had done for her through the night—ridding the agony of revitalization with the power of his healing hand.

She was in a new sort of universe because of him. She was on the other side, where the clocks always tick and the music never stops and the rain is cause for a leisurely stroll in town. She was healed of all pre-existing wounds, from the torn ligaments in her leg to the broken chimes of her voice box. Despite all that he had taken at her request, her beating heart and crying eyes, Ella was whole again at last, after having been too long disappointed by fate.

Her inner acceptance was hushed by his same lush voice.

"I do believe it's your turn now, pet."

Ella turned her eyes to his and smiled, with a gesture to the flowers.

"You want me to do_ that_, too?"

John just shook his head and took her hand, both of them standing and then walking back towards the crowds in the drizzling town. He stopped her on their previous corner, overlooking the whole of the active street. Then he nudged her with his shoulder.

"Go on, then."

Ella gulped.

"John. I don't know where to start with all of this."

"You've said that before, Eloise." A teasing smile settled at the corner of his lips. "And you didn't have any problem at all devouring _Mr. Anderson_ this morning."

She sighed, "That was different. There was procedure."

"There can be procedure here as well, darling."

Gripping her umbrella handle more tightly, she shot him one last glimpse underneath.

"Can there be?"

He nodded and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close to his side.

"Close your eyes."

The command made her even more nervous, being so near to him. Ella was certain she knew exactly who this was all for and who it was she loved most in the world. But John Wilmot was a force to be reckoned with. His voice and touch and energy even now, even with her own power, were terribly tempting.

She closed her eyes anyway and relaxed into his arms.

"Now," he whispered huskily. "I want you to focus all of your thoughts on the sounds of this street, on the sounds of the people and the horses and the rain. Everything."

Ella concentrated, found her center, her everlasting focus. She breathed in the nothingness of John's immortal scent and tried to find something new. She hunted without moving and listened without hearing. She touched without reaching and tasted without drawing her teeth this time. And what she found as she drifted in this state of otherworldly harmony with the earth, was that she could feel and hear and taste and see so much more than when her eyes were open, and her ears were intent and her hands were busy.

Humans—women, children and handsome men alike—all had specific flavors and aromas which were in no way related to their perfumes or soaps. These were underlying fragrances that could only be known by the unknown, a vampire aware of it in their own right, as she was. They were each of them stronger than the last, whether sweet or rich or sour or lacking altogether. Scent was not a scent in this state. It was existence, the being of life and energy as a whole. There was zest in a businessman and spice in a barmaid and bitterness in the town's rotten old man and sweetness in a skipping young girl.

There was too much to focus here and far too much to be tempted by. Ella realized soon enough, that this had been John's reason for wrapping his arm around her. He knew better than she did about the power of that first experience with hunting the other species. As much as she wanted to be set free to do damage and savor the aftertaste of victory, she was grateful evermore.

"What do you see? What do you smell, Ella?"

She smiled hungrily at his question and held him for control.

"_Everything."_

John laughed under his breath and continued to study her facial expressions, while Eloise continued to study the world.

It was under her fingertips, at the tip of her very tongue, all of it. She was consumed by the vastness of pleasure and equal frustration in this new state of hers. Everything was delicious, but it could not be had greedily. There had to be control to survive. There had to be procedure, just as she'd noted, or else society itself would crumble at the hands of monsters. And without society, those like her and John could not exist either. The balance is what saved them from themselves, and the feeble minded, mouth-watering human race, deserved at least a fighting chance.

She smiled at her thoughts and relaxed a little more into John's arms. She breathed in and out, moved around as much as she could in his hold and sought out something new, something different than what she had already inhaled. She kept her eyes closed and her nose and ears peeled, and when everything seemed to be fading back to regularity, there was a fierce and sudden wind that picked up around them. And with that wind, came her paramount scent.

It flew beneath her nose like leaves in autumn and pollen in summer. Ella was frozen in John's arms, completely. She was a prisoner to this aroma, confined to its rising intensity as it grew nearer and nearer. It filled her body and poisoned her every pore with desperation. She had to have this, whatever it was, cinnamon and musk and sage with the faintest trace of daisies. She had to wrap her arms around this smell and embrace it for all eternity. She had to know all of its feelings and wishes and most importantly of all, its secrets.

_Its secrets_, Ella thought as her eyes snapped open.

Something strong came over her then and she pushed away from John's arms, stumbling backwards into the street. Her umbrella fell from her grip and her hands were held strong against her skull, fingers running through her damp hair.

"Ella. What's wrong?"

John's voice was there, safe and worried and undying. But another voice towered above it, the voice of the one thing, the one man she knew she needed more than even scent and taste would allow. Ella could hear Frederick in the deepest confines of her mind, but he was not speaking to her, and she was not recalling any time she had ever spent with him. She was hearing and seeing and feeling things that Fred had felt, long before he'd ever felt her.

Images were flashing throughout her entire being—of a golden-haired beauty and a wedding and the news of a pregnancy—a pacing pair of boots she recognized and the news of two deaths, a wife and a son—years rushing by in a haze of toxins, those same ones she had tested in his home—a string of gruesome murders and a handful of buxom women and then one woman, a red-haired gypsy sort with emerald eyes and an Irish tongue.

_"Eloise!"_ John broke into her stream of consciousness. He grabbed her arms and tried to hold her steadily against him. "What's the matter? Tell me what you see."

She was seeing too much to be precise. She was seeing too much and learning too much more about the secrets of a single man's heart, to even be coherent. But she tore herself away long enough to find the protection of John's black eyes and to whisper a few jumbled words.

"Memories," she exhaled. "Lots of memories_ - things_ - I don't know."

He shook her body softly in his hands. "Your memories? Of what?"

"No," Ella replied. "Not my memories."

And then before he could find the strength enough to hold her, Ella managed to slip free of his arms and move back from him. She had strength to be sure now. But her eyes were lost in a haze of green and gray and darkness. Her hands were trembling without reason.

"I have to go to him," she spoke incoherently as she fumbled backwards in her long skirts. She nearly tripped over her fallen umbrella as she turned to run away, then fly away into the falling rain, demanding, "I have to go find Frederick."


	40. Always Yours

**Downtown Hampshire -

* * *

**

"You're sure you've not seen her 'round today?"

Behind a counter, stacked high with boxes of cloth and buckles, was a rotund man shaking his head regretfully.

"It's awful weather out there, though. I do hope ye find the poor lass."

Frederick nodded, patted the rough counter and stepped back towards the front of the shoemaker's shop. He had been back and forth through each building of town, from the corner market, to Dempsey's Pub, to the ribbon shop and dress tailor's and the hat maker's. He had wandered aimlessly in the pouring rains of midday Hampshire, and turned up empty of Ella at every new corner he searched. There was only the bakery and the post master's office remaining, and he wasn't particularly sure that either would have seen anymore of her than the last five blocks of businesses.

She could be anywhere. She could have found passage back to London for all he knew. Ella could have been gone hours before his hunt for her had begun. And how would he know? How would he be able to stop her from leaving, if she had already left him? And if she had, how would he ever recover this time?

"Good day, Inspector."

The send-off of the old shoemaker was met by the ringing of his shop door's bell and the sound of Frederick's boots hitting the wet cobblestones outside. He placed his hat back on and began to walk, his head hung in defeat. The more he thought about trying to find Ella, the more he started to believe that it was impossible, that she was no longer on the coast or close enough to be discovered. His pace was slow and his heart was thumping quietly in his chest. The rain was thick and cold all around him, around the whole of town.

And it was loud enough, to nearly drown out the echo of something he thought he knew.

"…_memories, things, I don't know."_

He paused mid-step. He froze. He turned back around.

His eyes rose from under his bowler hat, focusing on the middle of the street opposite the tea shop. There were two figures moving between raindrops and a fallen umbrella slowly rolled away from them in the icy wind. The man—tall and dark and looming under his cover—was handling the smaller figure, a young woman, with a vivid shake. Frederick could hardly hear their conversation, but he heard shouting, and soon saw the way the girl escaped the man's grasp.

His heart raced now, seeing the gray light of the afternoon playing on her features, proving his suspicions right. Frederick shouted her name and leaped off the curb, running towards the pair of them. But she could not hear him above the memories pooling in her mind. Ella could not see him in the midst of her fear. She could not know that the scent she had breathed in truly had been him, her Frederick, a single block away that entire time. And in turn, he could know none of these new senses existed from her side.

So he was forced to watch her, soaked and scared, hurrying backwards and out of sight, down the hill for the coast again. His mind ran as wild as her feet, assuming too much of the lone figure standing idly by, observing her leave the same. His boots pounded the pavement, his fist was drawn and his angry scowl was a practiced one. He knew exactly who this was.

Frederick's fist struck John's shoulder and he fell forward with a surprised glare.

"Damn you," he growled. "What did you do to her?"

John had a fairly good answer for this question, but he remained silent, gaining his balance again and dropping his umbrella to take in the sight of Frederick before him. He could see the madness in his eyes, boiling a darker brown, almost black. He could tell by the clench of his hands and the warrior's stance he had taken under the falling rain, and even the way his jaw was set with invisible screws, that Ella's dear Inspector meant harm once more.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

His return expression was somber as he shifted his weight. John wasn't going to fight a man who would lose beneath his strength. He would let Frederick have his way out this time.

"You stay away from her. I will kill you this time. I'm not afraid of _whatever_ you are."

He could have laughed. But instead, John gained footing on the confronting man.

"I've done nothing to her. You've seen the situation wrong, Abberline."

"I know what I saw."

"No. You don't."

Frustration filling his every pore, Frederick attacked John without another thought. His wet hands slammed into his hard chest, forcing him backwards in a mock, human stumble. He made no attempt to fight in return or counteract the blow. He wavered, stood straight again and simply shook his head.

The rain soaked his lips when he shouted, "You're wasting your time with me. She's left to go find you. Don't be a fool!"

Frederick's snarl loosened and his shoulders relaxed a little in the wet air. He didn't speak a word more. He only listened, the heels of his boots arched off the ground, prepared to run.

"Ella is yours. She was yours from the start."


	41. Memories

**Dorset Coast –

* * *

**

The empty cottage whispered things to Ella as she walked inside. Darkness filled its every corner and a cold, dampness wafted in the air. The floorboards that creaked under her floating steps spoke of memories in the making. They told a story of a man who had woken in fear and fallen to their rough surface. She felt everything Frederick had known in his dreams, in his startled awakening, and in his hurried exit from the house.

He had gone to find her in town. He had left with tears in his eyes and a crumbled piece of parchment paper in his hand. Her words had followed him out the door, every single _'I love Frederick.'_

Her dress, heavy with rain, clung to her skin. John's coat, which she still wore to ward off the unnatural cold of her new inhabitancy, was even wetter. She pulled it off and laid it across the table. Then she lifted the collapsed chair from the floor and placed it back, absorbing the memory of Frederick's body inside of it as he slept. She saw the dream he had dreamed of her, on the beach, begging for kisses and commanding her love. She felt his teeth devouring her neck and touched hers now, shivering.

"What does that mean?" she whispered to herself. "He wants me to—?"

Her thoughts were broken by the shattering clap of thunder outside. It sounded as though it was hitting the shingles of the cottage, and for that, she knew she had to get away. She felt as though she were being followed by nature itself, the secrets of her new world being shouted from the rainclouds high overhead. She felt compromised by everything now.

So Ella tore the buttons on her bodice and untangled the laces of her dress, her corset and skirts, discarding the wet garments one by one. She slipped off her boots and soaked stockings, attempting to remove his scent and thus, remove his memories. It did not work, though. Her long hair fell in her face, down her shoulders, the rain glistening at the end of every curl like diamonds. And in nothing but her damp chemise, barefoot and surrounded by the memories that belonged to the man she loved, Eloise opened the front door to the cottage and left.

With every step she took—toes sinking in the mud of the garden, in the sands of the path to the beach—another image was produced, another remembrance of places and people she had never known. His life was revealed to her, piece by painful piece. She could not stop it from happening. Because he was there, the musk of his existence, burned into her skin and driving her mad with every lust of human and eternal nature alike, so were the finite details of his entire life. Her head ached with the voice of his past, and she grew more anxious to touch him, to feel him, to savor him.

This, the desire to taste him, scared Ella the most.

She began to run, if only to outrun his certain return. Her feet, fast and fluid and otherworldly in precision, moved through the drenched coastal grasses and skipped over the wet rocks on the shore. The rain did not slow her. If anything, it made her more capable of endurance, drenching her solitude. Without sunshine for burden, she felt more powerful than anything else, ever.

And somewhere in her mind, Frederick was whistling.

She leaped off the last rock closest to the shoreline and landed ankle deep in the salt water. She was drawn to the sound of his humming, another memory, and the tune on his tongue as he found occupation in something, in her mind, working and hammering and re-building a mystery place. She turned from the black ocean and faced the underbrush of the outer cliffs. His whistling, this memory of his, was drawing her somewhere. Her feet moved of their own accord, kicking up water and wet sand.

It didn't take long at all for her to discover, in light of all the darkness, a freshly painted white building tucked into the overgrowth of English vines. She could no longer hear him, or the ramblings of his past. This place rescued her sanity and quieted every sound on the coast, save for the crashing of the waves and the patter of raindrops on the walls of the old boat house.

Ella walked towards the door, her cold hand firm on the wooden handle. She tasted the scent of him in the air surrounding this place, combined with the freshness of falling rain on her lips. And with a tug of the handcrafted knob, the door squeaked, the air went stale and Eloise crept inside, completely unafraid for a change.


	42. Faith

**Minutes later...

* * *

**

He hated it. He absolutely despised knowing that he trusted John Wilmot.

But he was running, windswept and storm torn, his clothes drenched from thread to thread, and his boots sinking into the sand and soil and marsh of the coastal hills. His arms were moving back and forth manically, his eyes were glazed with the onslaught of rain against him, and he was weak with the need to do only one thing at all. He had to touch her, kiss her. He had to know that everything was alright. Frederick had to know, by looking into her eyes for the only truth he'd ever known, that things hadn't changed while he had been lost to sleep and dreams of ecstasy.

He just had to know.

Somewhere, a yard or less from where the path forked towards the cottage, he saw from the corner of his eye, small white flecks appearing in the grass on either side. He ignored them at first and only hurried on, his mind set in ways he couldn't understand. It was as though something was pulling him in this one direction, past the cottage he had intended to return to and down the cliffs. He was being forced, without benefit of retreat, to go to the stormy shore below. And those white flecks, those daisies, running the course of the path with him, both mocking and leading him on further, were not coincidence at all. The daisies were faithful markers guiding him to where she was.

To the place she had discovered without him.


	43. Heart of Stone

**Abberline Cottage –

* * *

**

Eloise could remember vividly, the very first time she had ever stepped foot upon a dance floor.

She was five years old, wild-eyed and curious about everything within reach. With bouncing curls and wobbly-legs, she had stumbled into the second floor at Cecelia's studio, the room where her own mother rehearsed daily. She had escaped from her father's arms and ran after the music tinkling above her head, tripping on her skirts. She could remember it moment for moment. All she had to do was take one masterful step into the dry sanctuary of the old boat house restored, and she could tap into every second of that day, of that year so far gone now. It was like walking back into Cecelia's for the first time, like seeing her mother's twirling reflection in that sparkling glass room in the sky, all over again. She wasn't sure how he had done it, or why, particularly.

But he had.

Frederick had built a haven, one that she knew he had intended for her solely. The floor beneath her bare, wet feet was smooth and sanded for the exact transfer of dancing weight. The walls—shadowed by the darkness pouring in through the rain-soaked windows—were painted beautiful shades of violet and lavender and daisy yellow. The mirrors, shimmering with the storm's reflection, were endless, following the handcrafted dance bar and full of the imagery of her refuge. Though she recalled something John had mentioned, something that a book Frederick had shown her in the library had said.

_My reflection, _Ella thought briefly. _I won't have one anymore, will I?_

Sliding closer to the glass, her eyes were averted under the veil of her dripping hair. She tried to avoid it, the certain loss. Nothing would be worse than that now. Nothing would hurt more than not seeing herself reflected in the beautiful glass that Frederick had cut and hung and made shine, just for her.

Her hands drew into fists at her side and her strong nails dug into her palms. She watched the floor, her toes, frozen in front of the mirror, her knees trembling with that same eerie cold and her eyes shifting. She wanted to look. She wanted to know as quickly as possible what the fate of her soul truly was. Ella turned her green eyes up and found them staring back at her, glittering like unexpected emeralds under a sea of hazelnut. Her hands covered her mouth, her face. She flew to the mirror, examining herself with pinches and caresses and strokes of the glass image made.

Her tiny body did not look so tiny anymore. She was elegant even in her lithe form, with her same breasts and hips and legs, exaggerated to an ethereal quality. Her skin was soft to the touch, but firm and smooth and cool, like John's. Her lips were a shade of ruby that would not waver or fade. The lashes of her eyes, wet with rain still, moved like a hummingbird's wings. Her hair, even soaked, was dark silk spun on an imaginary spindle. And from what Eloise could see of herself, through herself, she was happy. She was alive and full and existent to the memory of glass. She had remained a part of Frederick's world after all.

As she turned from the mirror, something came into view that she had before missed. Dangling on a hook of the wall was a pair of silken ballet flats. Ella touched them and immediately sensed something changing in the air around her. Those memories she felt and heard and tasted, were no longer memories. They were right there, approaching her, meeting her in the middle of everything. That scent, of ginger and pepper and English wildflowers, seeped through the walls of the tiny house he had built for her. It moved beyond the drizzled windows and under the rafters of the ceiling above her. It crawled beneath the floorboards and crept under the doorway. It dizzied her with hunger and made her lust for the worst of all possible things.

And then it threw back the door, breathless and frantic, and she gasped.

He stood in the doorway, rain cascading in the sky behind him, mocking his exhaustion from having clearly run to where she was. His heart was pounding in his chest, and she could hear this magnified against his wet clothes like the drum of an army. His mind was rushing with thoughts instead of memories, and she could hear a handful of them in the room between them.

_She's here. I found her. She's not gone._

_My God, she's so beautiful._

_Those eyes…_

_I love this woman so much. _

Her hand fell from the ribbons of the shoes and her eyes drifted up to find his. They burned with everything in his mind and made her not weaker, but somehow stronger. Her entire body was alive with the sound of his breathing and the whisper of his boots striking the wood floor as he moved towards her.

"You're back."

She blinked, bit her lip out of habit, and nodded. Even with her voice returned to her, Ella was speechless under the hard lines of beauty in his face.

"I was so worried you had gone."

She shook her head and tried to ignore the rising desire to pin him to the wall and take the sweetness directly from his veins.

"I saw him, in town. He was there with you and he—"

Frederick stopped to search for the words to explain. He squeezed the tension from his hands and stepped closer, examining her silently for scars or more pain. He could not know that every thought he was having became immediate memory, and that in turn, every memory he made became hers for the taking.

"You came here. You found this place."

His hands moved out to touch her cold, wet arms. She tried to focus her attention on anything but the warmth, the love she felt making her mad with bloodlust for him.

"I built it all for you, Eloise. I want to give you the whole world."

Ella gulped back her own fear of harming him, of biting and savoring and draining the very life from his pores. With all of the strength she knew she now housed in her small bones, she shoved him back from her and then turned away. She pretended as though he was not there and did not matter. She tried to make herself believe she could completely overrule his scent and soul and entire being. But Ella knew it could not be done. He already consumed her.

"I don't want the world."

She whispered the words, revealing the return of her voice. Then she turned back around to see Frederick's expression. Tears welled at the seams of his russet eyes and a strange sort of grin crossed his parted, shocked lips. He attempted to breathe and she saw how he barely managed.

"I only ever wanted _you_, Frederick."

Ella did not move to him. She protected him from herself, if only because she loved him _that_ much.

"I've wanted you since that first moment you knelt down to tie my boots. You held my feet and looked up at me and—" she sighed out of more human habit and felt phantom tears creeping into her eyes to match his. "And I knew then, that I only wanted to look into your eyes and look at you, forever. No one else has mattered. It has been you, always."

He smiled more fully and wiped a few of his own tears away, letting her go on. He could not stop her for anything. He could not interrupt heaven on her tongue. The sound of her voice, after days and weeks and months of silence was like water in drought, rich candlelight glowing in the darkness of the storm.

"I've been foolish. I've been so selfish, thinking only of what seemed best and not what I thought was right." She placed one bare foot forward and inched a little closer to his body's overwhelming heat and vibrant musk. "I did something. Well, John he—" she fumbled for words and her fierce green eyes softened back to a deep sea jade. "I don't want to hurt you anymore. I can't."

"Ella," he broke in. "You've never hurt me, not once. You could not in any way make me less than utterly happy, just as I am now. I know that."

"You don't," she fought harshly.

"Yes. I do."

"No," she demanded, moving past him for the doorway to the boat house, her tiny music box by the ocean's side. "You don't know what I've done. You don't see what I really am and what I cannot allow myself to do to you the same. I thought I wanted this with you, but now," her hands drew into tight fists of self control, and she listened to the rain softly hitting the sand outside, before looking back over her shoulder at him and adding, "You've seen too much pain. You're heart has been forever bruised and beaten, and I cannot take your love for granted anymore."

His expression was a blend of nerves and worry and guilt already. Then Ella whispered, "I love you, Frederick," and his entire chest collapsed with blinding warmth.

Those words, the ones he'd read from her journal over and over again through the entire night, had slipped her lips and drowned him. She had spoken them to him in a way he never thought she might again. Her voice carried him away to his dreams, one in particular, of them on a beach and her face nuzzled against the hair of his cheek, whispering all sorts of things the same. He drifted for a moment, lost in the beauty of three little words and his own desire to reach out and hold her to him. And when he shook away the fantasy and focused clearly on their positions in the small studio doorway, he saw her eyes and froze under their intensity.

Ella was not smiling the way he was and she was not romanticizing her confession. She only stared at him directly, casting the same spell of that imminent forest green upon him.

"I love you. I always have, and always will." Her hands were pushing her out of the door, back into the crystal rain falling, soaking her skin. She said, "But I also love you too much to pretend that this would ever be fair to you," before disappearing into the storm without him.

"Ella!" he shouted after her, only to be granted a roll of thunder as response.

So he did what he'd begun to master at the hand of her constant attempts to leave him, and he ran through the door, out onto the beach. He followed the shadow of her body through the rain, of her moving at an unnatural rate away from him. He shouted her name until his voice began to grow hoarse in the mist and wetness, increasing his speed and finding endurance that he had never known he contained. He felt her words rushing in and out of his body, his mind, and it made his feet quicker and his voice louder above the stormy skies.

"Eloise," he called out as his boots ground into the sand behind where she had slowed halfway up the hill. "Don't you dare leave me," he demanded with a heavy breath. "Don't run away from all of this!"

Her strength had failed her and her legs, supernaturally driven or not, had grown weak with the sound of his voice. She turned back, soaked to the core of her porcelain skin, and stared down at him in the middle of the wind and falling rain and striking sounds of lightning.

"All of what?" she shouted in response, as he trudged towards her. "Look at me. Don't you understand what I've done? Don't you see what I am now? Where is my breath, Frederick?"

She breathed into the cool air and nothing was revealed, no self-made fog.

"Here," she met him in the middle of the tall, damp grass and pulled his hand towards her heart.

His fingers were spread over the sheer fabric of her chemise, but no beat radiated against his palm. His eyes went wide and she knew then, that he was seeing. Frederick gulped back his own fear and pressed his hand more closely to her chest, reveling in the unexpected coolness and how smooth she was. She had always been soft in his hands, but this was different. This was an untouchable touch. This was bliss in the rarest, most inhumane of forms. Her hand covered his over her unmoving heart and the other reached out to cup his face and turn his eyes back to hers.

"It's frozen in time for you."

He breathed a deep breath and massaged her skin, wanting to pull her closer and know what it would feel like to give in to what seemed so wrong. She was standing before him, a figment, a ghost of a girl in the middle of a storm that would not harm her. She was what he had fought to rescue her from for so long. She was alive and as beautiful as he'd ever seen her. She was his, eternally. Her words on parchment had proved her love through mortality, but her words in the wind now, proved their conversion into another world entirely.

"I'm cold," she interrupted his inner battle. "I will never be able to warm you again. And I'm strong. Without intention, I might easily break you, or others."

"But you won't."

She was still under his gaze, his words and the rain, as she listened.

"You wouldn't hurt anyone so terribly, even—" pausing, his eyes drifted over her entire form, from her dirty toes in the mud to the ends of every wet curl. "I know you, Eloise Rousseau. I know who you are, no matter what he's done to you."

"I asked him to do this to me," she argued.

"You asked him?"

"Yes," she removed his hand from her heart and stepped back a little, watching the way the raindrops covered him, soaked through him so beautifully. "No matter how selfish I would sound, I wanted to be healed. I wanted my voice back and I wanted to be able to dance again."

Silence fell for only a moment.

"And I wanted to live an eternity with you. I don't want to know losing you, the way you've lost so many." Her voice was quiet in the fierce storm, but he heard every last rise and fall of her tone, every point made. "I wanted to be whole and in love with you, always."

His eyes were intent upon hers and without knowing the how's or why's of it all, of his heart and of everything growing so quickly inside of him, Frederick fell to the wet ground at her feet. His knees sank into the mud and he stared up at her, blinking away the rain and holding her perfect body in his hands. Ella had been here once before with a very different man. She finally realized, looking down into the darkness of Frederick's eyes, and placing her hands gently onto his shoulders beneath her, that this was how it was meant to be for her. This was the right man. This was the man that was supposed to kneel before her and hold her as though she might evaporate into the wind.

This, right here with Frederick Abberline, was life, living or not.

"Do it then," he howled into the thunder above them. "Do whatever you have to do to me, Ella. But don't leave me here in this world alone, without you."

She wasn't sure she believed him, or understood his surrender to her love. She wasn't sure she wanted to be this close to him, this vulnerable with her own hunger for him or have this much power over the situation. But she was sure that she didn't want to go away, or leave him there brokenhearted, or even walk away brokenhearted herself. She knew that much and that was enough somehow.

"Take me away from here with you," he begged, hugging her waist more closely to his wet face, breathing her in the same way he always had. "Love me on the other side, darling. Love me how I know you want to."

"Frederick, I—"

"Bite me, Eloise."

His words cutting into hers were livid with desire, and wanting of only one thing. And that was her, in every form, every possible way, no matter the danger or the pain. He wanted to be hers, and have her be his, immortally and without a second thought. And for whatever reason, good or bad, Ella loved him even more then.

His neck, as he tilted it back for her to take advantage of, was sweet smelling and warm and lovely. It was the most spectacular sight she'd ever known before. It was everything she'd hope it would be and more. Even as nervous as she was, even as much as she wished someone was in her head, telling her exactly what she needed to do.

_Someone like me, you wit?_

The distant laugh of a hidden man suddenly filled her mind, and she smiled. Her hands were soft on Frederick's shoulders, stroking towards his neck, collecting every drop of rain on his burning flesh. She waited for the moment of assistance to arrive, mesmerized by the spell of Abberline's scent all around her, intoxicating her.

_You must not get carried away this time. You must find control now, Eloise._

She nodded to John inside of her head and leaned down closer to Frederick's neck, inhaling him. Her eyes began to slowly boil over with the lust she had previously run from, and they faded to a luminous, almost fiery shade of olive and emerald. Her lips quivered around the fangs she could feel retracting naturally, and she stiffened, her body going completely hard with the rising need.

_Trust your instincts. Be gentle with him. _

This, above all else, was what she knew would be easiest for her. Ella's hands on Frederick's shoulders, on his head, tilting it further back in the middle of the downpour, were soft and smooth and loving. These were not the hands of a seducer in the shadows, nor the hands of a monster. These were the hands of a woman madly in love with being in love, a woman who was seeing his every thought and every memory of her flash in and out of her head. These were the hands that wanted to hold him until the world stopped turning, as his friend, his betrothed, and someday hopefully as his wife.

_Break the skin and drink slowly, Ella. This is important. Slow, steady._

Her lips touched Frederick's skin, and he flinched beneath her hands. She could feel his fear desperately being fought off by his love for her. He was afraid of this, but not afraid of her. His thoughts, transforming into instant memories, told her all of this as she drew her fangs along the pressure of his carotid artery. She heard him groan with something of distinct pleasure—a sound she had for too long missed—in the back of his throat.

"Do it, Ella." He whispered to her for certainty. "_Please_, darling."

_Go on, _John permitted inside of her head. _This is your fate. This is who you're meant to have._

She smiled a little into Frederick's neck at the sound of their words entwined in caring agreement. Her teeth scraped the surface of the rich flesh beneath his jaw, and with control and ferocity and hunger and adoration filling her bones, with the slight of her hands cradling his head, Eloise bit down and claimed the one thing she knew she'd always needed.

In a field of rain covered daisies, Eloise Rousseau made her finest mark.


	44. Waiting

**Hours later…

* * *

**

There was the scent of stale blood on the floor of a dance studio. He saw boots and felt two small, dirtied feet.

"_My name is Ella," _she said.

Her green eyes were full of tears.

"_Playing witness again, are we?"_

"_You easily could think the worst of me, Inspector."_

"_And yet I don't, Ella."_

There was a late night at the Courthouse, a startled girl escaping another man and the rain. There was her wet dress hem and a scraped knee.

"_Frederick. Don't you have anyone to go home to?"_

He shook his head and dared to kiss her.

"_I want you, Eloise."_

"_Why?"_

"_There is no reasoning. I do. And that's it."_

He saw a library on a rainy afternoon, following another funeral. There was a book of definitive answers and nerves tightening. There was a promise and an offer of lodging, a need to protect at any cost. There was Ella in his home, trembling and desperate and face down in the sheets, begging him for more.

"_Wasn't too rough. Was I, love?"_

He felt her nuzzling his fuzzy cheek with a smile.

"_No. You were perfect."_

There were bodies, mangled and bloodied and ruined. There was risk and fear and anger at not being able to find the culprit, at never realizing how close he was, and close the woman he was beginning to love was to him in return. There was a dance studio on a foggy London night. There were sweaty hand prints on a crystal mirror, shouts of passion and the sound of a tinkling music box at a distance.

"_Ella. I love you…"

* * *

_

"Ella!" he howled beneath her cradling hands.

Her bite was enduring, soul consuming, and he could feel himself dying moment by passing moment. His hands trembled and his knees sank further into the mud, crushing wet flowers and grass as her mouth commanded all control of his body. He was falling fast, dizzied by the sound of thunder in the sky and Ella's moans in his ear. She was satisfied sounding, with her arms wrapped around him, her teeth miles in hide under his flesh. Her strength was marked by his growing weakness. And then, it all went completely blank.

His thoughts disappeared and the memories faded, and the touch of her hand and the agonizing pleasure of her bite both went unnoticed. He dropped to the ground unconsciously, and Ella fell with him, stricken with fear at what she'd done.

"Frederick. No!"

The storm covered them as they covered the patch of muddy grass. She stroked his wet hair and winced nervously into his cheek. He was pale and as cold as she was and as unresponsive as he could be. She stared at him, green eyes wide and wondering about whether she had looked this way when John had taken her from the world. She didn't know what to do to help him, to follow through with what she'd already done. She didn't know anything, except to keep holding him, her cheek pressed to his chest, her arms hugging all of him, knowing him in the worst ways possible.

He was dead. She was dead. And the hands that gripped her waist and began pulling her up, were dead the same.

"We must get him inside."

John lifted Ella into his arms and settled her bare feet back on the ground properly, before stepping aside and kneeling to haul Frederick's body up as well. She watched him, unable to concentrate on what it all meant. She couldn't move, not at least until he walked past her holding Frederick and gesturing towards the old boat house.

"This is nearer than the cottage and dry."

Her silence cut through the grieving atmosphere.

"Eloise," he demanded loudly, forcing her attention. "Come, now."

Her feet moved and her mind steadied itself, enabling her to follow. The door to the boat house was open, the floor salted with rain and sand at the opening, but otherwise dry and somewhat cozy, at least in comparison to the wet cliffs. She watched John settle Frederick's limp body onto the planks and she couldn't seem to accept what she was seeing. The man she had always loved, falling lifeless out of the arms of the man she had lusted for, behind his back.

In this little room, with its glittering mirrors and streaked windows and painted walls, the three of them were together again, so very differently than the last time. Something deeper than love had been forgiven without words. Something had connected them at last, John and Frederick, and whether it was a stillness of heart or an equaled interest in Eloise, she was grateful all the same.

She fell to the floor at Frederick's feet and slowly untied the laces of his boots. She remembered the first time she had ever met him and how he had tied the laces of hers into place. She removed his shoes, then his wet socks, and caressed his bare feet in her lap, trying to warm ice with ice.

"His body will rest now, as yours did."

Ella gulped and looked up at John, who was taking off his coat and covering Frederick with its warmth.

"For how long?"

"Hours," he replied quietly. "Or into the morning, perhaps."

"And when he wakes…?"

John ran his hand through his wet hair and rose from the floor, pacing towards the window in thought.

"You remember drinking from me, do you not?"

She wasn't focused on him now. Ella crawled slowly to where Frederick's head was limp against the wooden planks. She raised it into her lap, stroking through the boyish curls plastered to his forehead and temple.

"I remember," she whispered.

John touched the window's pane for a moment and the moisture rolled onto his palm.

"You must do the same for him. His body will require nourishment, your blood."

He removed his hand from the glass, far from surprised that there was no streaky imprint left behind. He did not exist here, either. He sighed angrily, turned back to see Ella lost in the care of her comatose Inspector, and closed his eyes.

"He must not drink too much, Ella. Know this."

She nodded without looking back at him, adrift in the sensation of Frederick's feathery black eyelashes under her fingertip's touch.

"You will fall weak and be unable to help him. You must control him when he wakes, and be sure he understands."

Her lip trembled in a very human sort of way, a way that used to warn of tears coming.

"I will," she said.

"Good."

John slid across the floor from the window, towards the door again, taking his leave in a silent sort of gust. Ella felt him going and without moving from the floor or from Frederick, she stopped him with her voice.

"What if something happens?" she asked nervously. "What if I need your help, John?"

He froze halfway to the door and shifted back on the heels of his own boots. There was a whisper of a waltz that brought him to her side, kneeling one last time beside her. He brushed imaginary teardrops from her cheeks and softly tapped on her temple with his index finger, smiling.

"We're connected now, Eloise. I'm right here for you. Just as soon as you feel you need me."

Her eyes moved away for half a second to look down at Frederick, and then she turned them back up, both in confidence and fright.

"Always?"

John shrugged and placed a kiss on the top of her head as he rose again.

"That's entirely up to you, darling."

Before she could find the words to thank him and plead for him to stay, he was gone, floating out of the door and out into the storm that did little to effect his beauty. She watched him go and then sank to the floor with her head resting atop Frederick's unmoving, beat-less heart. She reached for his fallen arm, lifeless as it was, and tied it around her waist as she hugged his damp body. She could not hear his memories or read his thoughts now, and it was distracting, far too quiet.

The rain was loud. The world was still spinning. The clocks were ticking, this time without the both of them.


	45. Anywhere

Thanks so much for your wonderful comments, **Lina**! They are MUCH appreciated! Hope everyone is enjoying the story.

-J

**

* * *

Dawn –

* * *

**

Ella was surprised at how easily she could calm and employ herself through the heavy evening rains and midnight gusts blowing the storm clouds beyond the coast. She surprised herself at how simple it was to tell her body that she wanted to lie there in wait with Frederick's unmoving form, and in turn have her mind register this and settle from other interests. She was devoted to being as he was, still and quiet and breathless, until he could be otherwise.

It was with the first ray of light dancing on the floor, mere feet from where they resided, that brought along his resurrection. The morning seemed to bring warmth that the night could not harbor, even though John had advised Ella that the sun was not to be touched. The myth was truth now, no longer restricted to pages in a dusty text in the science fiction aisles of the library.

This was all real now.

And as Frederick began to stir beneath her, violently at that, she believed it at last. His chest leaped to a rapid start, like a swift kick to a horse's gut would have caused the reaction of hooves darting on cobblestone. His back arched off of the floor under her and she crawled to her knees for the first time in ten or more hours. His eyes were not open, but his mind was alive, awoken, and incredibly startled, judging by the pale lines crossed with his furrowed brow.

"Frederick," she whispered with a hand cupping his lolling cheek. "I'm here, darling. It's Eloise," she stroked the soft fur of his muttonchops. "I'm right here."

Something sparked then. Something registered across his face and thus, in his eyes, when he opened them up to her and she saw all of the truth. It pooled deep in his hazelnut gaze, a plea of help, to be helped by only her and as immediately as possible. His hands thrashed against the floor, as if he were trying to keep from harming her. His bare heels dug into the floorboards and his jaw was clenched in agony with the first pangs of that hunger that would forever govern him.

Ella gulped and straightened herself over him.

"You need to drink, Fred."

He tossed his head from side to side in disagreement that he could not understand. Ella found herself brushing each soft curl from his eyes, dried by the summer heat beneath the floor. She felt protective and proud and maternal. She had given to Frederick what John had her, and now she was burdened with every obligation in seeing to his care, for as long as forever demanded.

So she argued with his quiet refusal. "Yes. You must drink."

And she did as she had watched John do, lifting one of her wrists to her mouth and piercing her stone cool flesh and the vein directly beneath. She waited until the blood began to slowly drip into the palm of her hand, a mock cup of sorts, before she placed it at Frederick's chin and tilted it at his lips for the taking.

"No," he growled at her. "No. I won't."

She felt first offended, as though he were disgusted by her blood, as though what she had to offer was not the same as it would have been with another of her kind. She thought to search her mind for John, to call him to her in some way and fall on the floor, retching at being refused by the man she loved. She thought about it, yes. But decided at last to ignore the option. This was something she had to do for herself, for both her and Frederick, so that they could begin anew together at last. There was no more need to break John's heart. This was Ella's doing, and it would be her reward when Fred bonded himself with her.

"Please," she softly begged of him, resting on his chest and rolling her wrist close to his mouth again. The blood continued on in a thick crimson stream about the small of her hand, down to the very tips of her fingers. "Drink for me," she offered. "Drink for _us_, Frederick."

Where his eyes had been averted and his head turned, they drifted back to the level of hers above him, waiting. She was weightless on his chest, a vision like sparkling glass in the light of the room, with a halo of sublime promise surrounding her, the way it always had. It was simply magnified to him now and more persuasive, perhaps. For it was no more than a timeless flutter of lashes, like a blackbird's wings over her evergreen eyes, to bring his lips reaching out for her.

A single drop of blood, of Ella's blood—which was something magical in and of itself—danced on the pad of her index finger and he indulged. He licked it straight off. He let it melt into his taste buds, savored, cherished. His eyes began to roll back into his head. When they opened once more, Ella could see a new light in them, a faintly glowing ember from a long lasting flame, hidden among the darkness.

And without trying to fight it, Frederick's mouth went straight to the palm of her hand. His limp arm, now slowly restored with energy, grasped her arm tightly and held it in place as he drank. It was feverish, desperate, a forlorn act that could not be interrupted once it had begun. Once each of her fingers, as well as her palm and wrist had been suckled clean of the wine her body poured as gift to him, he could not keep himself from searching out more. He needed more, far too much more.

Ella, beside herself with his change of heart and appetite, watched him through blurred vision as she grew slightly weaker. He had stopped drinking from her, but had not ceased to hunt her skin for other sources, it seemed. He was kissing his way along the inside of her forearm, up to her elbow's bend and further still, following the incline of her ceramic flesh to her shoulder. He was half sitting under her feathered weight, and his gaze was rising with his lips. He was seeing her for the first time with new eyes, wonderful, illustrious eyes of a scarlet heat. He was burning her, the way she had never dreamed of being warmed again in her new world. So lost was she in this new spell of his, that she hardly noticed his hand sliding her chemise off her shoulder. She did not feel the cotton brushing her skin, or his second hand cupping her right breast roughly.

There was only Frederick Abberline for the passing of an eternity, all inside of one moment's flash.

"_My only love,"_ he mumbled lustfully as his mouth suckled at her neck, down to the firm bone that jetted from her throat to shoulder.

He nibbled softly, and her heart soared from her chest, frozen as it was. Her legs trembled around his and she could barely think clearly enough to wonder what that fierce light in his eyes could mean. She could hardly know that she needed to find something to steady her, his arms at least, for equilibrium against his dire need. Ella didn't know anything at all, and it was either set to be the destruction of her and him together, or the best cause for sensation there ever was. When she felt his bite at last, she knew it instantly, to be the latter.

Her lips parted to release a single whimper of pleasure. Ella's hands flew immediately to his upper arms, strong, and awoken with feral tremors of claim upon her tiny body. She tried to hold onto him as well as she could manage, but still only felt herself falling weaker, more pleased under his control. She wasn't sure if she was doing something wrong by letting it all happen this way, or if she should be trying to stop him from what he was doing, biting into the everlasting suppleness of her breast and drinking as deeply as he wished.

Ella writhed in his arms and pleaded loosely for him to stop. But her heart had other plans. Her heart wanted him to go on, to take as much as he needed or wanted, even if it meant she would be useless to him.

"Fred," she gasped, her hand moving from his arm to take a firm grip of the curls at the nape of his neck. She pulled a little, and then more harshly. "You have to stop. _Please_. Stop!"

As stunning a thing as it was, without more ado, he did just that. It was as if with her command over him and his own newfound instinct, that he had detected her failing energy. His lips stilled on her breast and his fangs released her soft flesh. With the direction of her hand grasping his hair, he leaned back and stared up into her eyes. The red was washed away instantly and they filtered back to a guilt ridden chestnut. He didn't say a word to begin, when he could say everything with his mind and spirit and embrace.

"You're alright," Ella whispered, stroking his face. "I'm alright. I promise."

"I hurt you," he muttered.

His words from the afternoon before flew through her mind and she smiled, replying.

"No. You've never hurt me, not once. You could not, in any way make me less than utterly happy, just as I am now. I know that."

Frederick sighed with a thankful grin and his cheek fell to her bosom. She cradled him there, her fingers twisting through the curls of his hair, suddenly like silk. She felt his arms, as strong as stone, hugging her closely to him, owning her, claiming her completely. She kissed the top of his head, his smooth forehead in gratitude, in unbreakable love. And just as she thought he had been calmed back into another conscious rest, she heard his voice reverberating off her flesh, at the place where he had bitten.

"What happens to us now?" he asked.

Ella smiled at his innocent tone and the word _'us'_ slipping from his lips.

"You have to learn to hunt," she whispered. "We have to learn so much, together."

"Here?"

She sighed. "Somewhere. Anywhere."

Frederick kissed from her breast to the bend of her arm, upward onto her shoulder, into the curve of her neck, across her ear and down her cheek to where her mouth was waiting. He was settled there with all of his nerves of this new unlived life, this world of stone and ice and timelessness.

"I love you," he said, kissing her lips softly. _"Somewhere. Anywhere…"_


	46. The Bet

**Venice, Italy –

* * *

**

On a warm July evening in 1926, a stone's throw from the San Marco Lagoon at the Café Noir, a cigarette graced the smiling lips of a young woman madly in love. Her legs, a dancer's legs, were crossed casually under the glow of a streetlamp, and she tilted her head back to catch the summer Italian breeze through the short pin curls of her hair. She laughed at something her companion was whispering into her neck, and half a dozen wandering patrons—victims—turned to catch a glimpse.

"You know exactly what I'm saying."

Her laugh subsided to a loving sigh.

"I do," she replied, inhaling the toxins of a cigarette that meant her no harm whatsoever. It was for show, for a feeling of equality to the women of the time. "But you can't be serious."

The man of her heart kissed her neck and toyed with a curl at her ear, smiling devilishly upon the night and the crowds of Venetian faire.

"I am entirely serious," he said. "I'll even place my bet, love."

"Oh," her eyes lit up teasingly and she put out her cigarette. "That makes all the difference in the world, then."

Frederick smirked. "Does it?"

And Eloise nodded, reaching into the bosom of her silk green dress. A crisp lire note of a substantial amount was placed on the wrought iron table at his hand, and then tucked lovingly beneath his finger's grasp.

"A certainty of loss perhaps, sweetheart?"

"No," she shook her head with a wicked grin. "I just have enough confidence in the collapse of your ego to stroke at it awhile." Ella shoved the bank note closer to the palm of his hand and kissed his lips smoothly. "Best of luck," she mocked him. _"Sweetheart…"_

He thought of all the things he wanted to say in return, but none of them suited. He was better off doing as he did, rising from his chair and adjusting his trousers and buttoning his jacket at the navel. He loosened his silk tie and threw on his fedora and blew a wet kiss into Ella's neck that made her body tremble, well into his being gone down the river walk. He could hear her, in the sweet air and in his head, amused and bemused.

Ella watched him fade into the crowds, appearing again at the place and the company he had spotted for the both of them. Three young women, of golden and copper and onyx doll curls, were leaning and laughing together on the bridge over the Giovanni Canal. And in the wake of their enjoyment, Frederick entered, tossing a glance back to Ella, with a sparkle in his smirk and a wink she knew well. She threw her head back humorously, before resting her chin on her arm, on the chair back, and studying his every move.

He flirted, as casually as most men in the city rowed boats or drank wine. He would touch the cheek of one woman and then brush at the hair of another, only to follow with a whisper of something smart and smooth in the ear of a third. This was how he operated, when given far too easy a target, or three. He made a game of everything and had since the evening she first taught him how to hunt, how to prowl. He loved to entertain her with his born skills, the ones that had been mastered with the first sensual touch of his very first victim in the night.

She remembered that night on the coast of England as if it were only days past.

In his mind, moments before it had actually occurred, he had seen a young woman dropping a silk tissue on the wet ground, passing him at the clock tower in Weymouth. This was the gift he had brought with him from the other side, a clairvoyant talent beyond any mortal standards. It was immediately helpful for him as well, though he hardly understood how best to control the images.

The woman had arrived, as he had seen, and dropped her handkerchief the same. He had thus snatched it as blew across the toe of his boot. Frederick had touched the delicate cloth to his nose, inhaling the rosemary scent of feminine flesh and had gone mad with something even worse than lust.

"_Her,_" he had growled uncharacteristically. "May I?"

Ella had for the second time, seen his eyes fade to a luxuriant crimson, one that screamed hunger even in the silence surrounding them. She felt envious of this girl, who was walking away quickly into the night. She felt uncertain and ill-equipped to teach, having only just begun learning herself. But this had been the best part, the both of them learning together, and even more so, learning control side by side.

Frederick had experienced the power of his ability well that night. He had followed after the girl, controlled by the thoughts that he and Ella seemed to share silently, and he had offered her the handkerchief once more. He had smiled kindly and brushed her palm with sweeping fingers. He had given her every eye of compliment, and hypnotized her without even knowing he was, without needing to think. It simply occurred; moment for moment, until she had been somehow backed against the eastern facing brick of the towering clock. He had her pinned before he knew why or how. His hands were stroking her skin, collecting her every passionate sigh.

And then he had kissed this girl, this Molly's neck, and that had been it.

She could not have known what he was, what he had only just become. This innocent young girl could not have known that a handsome man, with an act of kindness and smile for her in the dark of night, was anything less than a saint. She could not have guessed where the kiss would have led, or what weakness she would feel when he bit her, taken the life from her and regretted only one thing at all.

He regretted being able to see her future in the back of his mind, everything. Frederick could see clearer visions, the deeper his fangs set into the prism of her vein, of what Molly was meant to do in life. She was to marry within the next year, a striking man, a doctor in London. She was to have children, a boy and twin girls, with silky auburn hair the same as hers between his fingers. She was going to live a long and happy life, traveling and taking care of the ones she loved most. She was going to survive his attack, even though he was sure she had doubted it as he held her against that wall, stealing her energy.

Molly was going to move on from the greed of his new spirit. And because he knew this, Frederick also knew to control himself, to take only what he required for fill and to slide away from her without looking back. Eloise remembered seeing all of this, hearing it all in his mind as he had spoken to her, pleading with his insatiableness to let the girl go free. She had witnessed the most spectacular thing and never forgotten it, his goodness, which had followed him into the most ravenous of all lifestyles.

Because of this, watching him now, Ella could feel nothing more than utter amazement. It still, after thirty-five years of their having wandered and traveled and seen and lived and tasted together, did not seem a tired technique of his. She still felt indulged to observe at a distance and to follow wherever he managed to lure his prey. She felt no anger, no jealousy, and no fear of losing him. He belonged to her, as naturally as the stars belonged to the endless night sky, and the waves belonged to the hugging shores of Venice. Frederick was Ella's and Ella his, in complete and endless return.

Food was food.

Love was love.

And where these two things crossed so often in the lives of the humans they walked among, they never touched in their world. The hunt required one pair of eyes, and their nights spent together, every night, offered a very different sort of attention, one that could not be severed the way the trance of drinking had to be.

Ella tipped her wineglass towards the stone ground and released a drizzle of Chianti to the Gods, to the walking dead like herself. She slid back from her chair, rose gracefully and grabbed her silver cigarette case. Before turning from the table, she flicked her green eyes to a man staring at her from a distance on the lagoon veranda. She wished, fleetingly, after seeing his strong interest in her, that she was as hungry as Fred had been. His blood would have tasted as sweet as the wine must have tasted to the old earth of Italy. The blood was always sweeter when the men, her endless harem of quarry, were deeply interested and especially for a period of time prior to the bite.

This was one thing she knew as well as Frederick did.

She was not surprised to find him, when she had, tucked into the doorway of an abandoned house on the opposite side of the canal. The women remained, each of them satisfied in ways they couldn't comprehend, starry eyed and bleeding in various places. They were conscious of all that had occurred, but far too weak and far too stunned to attempt moving. Ella crooked her brow at Frederick, who stood loosely clinging to the wall of the dark building, his cheek pressed to stucco and his eyes falling from their always climatic fire-red.

He grinned drowsily at her and held out his hand for her to take.

"Are you quite satisfied with yourself now?" she chided.

"Yes, dear."

His fingers wagged at her, wanting to be held, wanting to be led away.

"Can we possibly return to the hotel without you swindling anymore of my money?"

One of the girls moaned as the other two slithered to the ground with lusty sighs. Frederick stumbled out of the doorway and fell into Ella's embrace.

"I have no desire to keep your money, my love."

He tucked the bank note from his pocket, back between her soft breasts.

"I have something else in mind for _reward_…"

The desire crawled off his tongue and filled her body with an ache that was impenetrable, always. It was forever there, waiting for him to satisfy it, and Ella knew he would. She knew it in the sound of his voice, and the passionate way he kissed the top of her head, and then the palm of her hand as they wandered back to their hotel. The moan of that victimized young girl in the street was nothing at all compared to what he would stir in her, well into the rest of the night.


	47. Dangerous Love

**Valencia, Spain – **_April 1941_**

* * *

**

The chime of a bell on the concierge desk at the Esperanza Hotel paralleled, in space and history's place, with the sound of another torn shirt button striking a balcony window, three floors up.

"Si," the hotel's evening caretaker shot awake, leaped to his feet and nearly fell out of his chair in the process. "Si, Signor?"

The haggard face of an elderly Spanish woman and her fuming husband, Madrid's Commissioner to the city of Valencia, were what the young man behind the counter saw. His heart sank into his gut at the sight, knowing that something was in some way troubling the hotel's highest paying guests.

"My wife and I cannot sleep with this noise!" the large man growled, his thick mustache curling with his red face.

The concierge shifted his eyes around the lobby, hearing nothing in particular.

"What noise is this you speak, Signor Morales? I hear nothing, _no queda_."

"Damn you!" he yelled, reaching out to take a firm grip of the employee's neck tie, practically lifting his feet off the floor and over the desk. "You hear nothing, do you? That pounding on the walls, that crashing on our floor?"

The small man's face was turning a purplish-red with oxygen deprivation, and he gasped, wriggling nervously out of the Commissioner's hold. His shined shoes hit the floor again, and he scurried, as quickly as possible, around the desk.

"Please. Show me what you mean, Signor?"

He gestured toward the elegant stairwell of the lobby, and the Commissioner pulled at his wife's arm, both of them in their silk night robes, clearly exhausted from being woken from sleep. He mumbled something under his breath and led the way for three flights, to the floor of suites where the noises were clearly audible and other guests were poking their heads out in sudden notice.

"You hear that now, you fool?"

The concierge nodded, avoiding the large man's swinging arm with a fast duck. He stood upright and moved past the both of them for the room at the end of the long hallway, the one that seemed to radiate the sound of movement and animalistic voices. His fist went to the door's aged wood, and he knocked swiftly once.

And he was ignored swiftly, once.

"_God please!" _

Outside of the door, the man's brow rose with the twitch of his mustache. Something struck the floor, broken, a vase or crystal glass. He knocked again, more loudly, shouting back.

"Senor y Senora?"

There was a loud thud on the opposite side of the door that made the concierge leap, his fist fall and eyes bulge.

"_YES! Oh yes, Fred…"_

The screech of a woman poured through the keyhole.

Every set of ears on the floor could hear everything. There were no more secrets about the sounds they were hearing, or the crashes that were keeping them all from proper sleep. It was as evident as the night was dark and the morning was a breath away. There were two lovers encased in one another's limbs behind the door of suite number 306. They were too lost in their passion to even pay heed to the disgruntled guests on their floor or the fists banging on the door beneath their grinding bodies.

This was one spell that could not be broken.

Frederick's hand gripped Ella's outer thigh, pinning it to his hip as he ground harder against her. His mouth was fixed on the pebbled peak of her right breast, his tongue rolling back and forth quickly, trying to see how far he could send her through the roof before finishing her off completely. Not that the damage hadn't already been partially done.

Her foot had kicked a lamp over when he had lifted her into his arms. He had tripped over a rug at the foot of the bed and managed to collide with a mirror on the wall for balance. It had fallen to the floor after his beastly shoulder broke it into a million pieces. Ella had torn the silk curtains on the balcony doors and Fred had fractured the stones on the ancient wall with his fist alone. And worst of all, was that neither of them cared. They continued on, flying about on a whim, breaking things, destroying the historic suite overlooking the peaceful black waters of the south Spanish coast.

This was how they loved now. Brutally, beautifully, without apology or shame.

She could feel the sharpness of his fangs teasing her flesh, but never sinking beyond. He would not bite her for entertainment tonight. He would only pleasure her, make her soar high above the city, never wanting to come back down again. Frederick knew he was good at this, and knew how good she was at taking him to equal heights. They had learned quickly, the power of their lust for one another, and the increased power of that lust at every new interval of their time spent together. Even anger was no match for their love. It simply became a catalyst for the tearing of clothes and the annihilation of hotel suites in exotic cities.

Eloise had wanted to see Spain for years. And somehow, although he promised her endlessly, they always had seemed to end up in a different place, trying something different. But for their 50th anniversary, a feat otherwise celebrated by couples preparing for the end of a wonderful life, Frederick had been determined to take her to the Spanish coast.

He sailed her there himself from Morocco, under their proper veil of night. He had found the most charming suite in the most inspiring of hotels in Valencia, one overlooking both the mountains and the Mediterranean. He wanted his bride, his wife, his deliciously wicked other half to remember what he remembered of that night they finally said _'I do forever'_, so very literally.

He remembered the way Ella's powdered cheek had rested on his tailored coat as they swayed to the sound of a nearby piano. He remembered the song, Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_, bittersweet and lovely and romantic all at once. He remembered how warm it was that night, the both of them celebrating something so private, so intimate, on a balcony overlooking all of Paris in April.

He remembered the way his fingers had played with the silk of her dress' bodice and the tiny pearl beads that had been sewn about her waist. He remembered the way she smelled, her hair like daisies and her skin like wine. He remembered thinking how lucky he was, to not have to worry anymore, to not have to fight for her anymore, to just know that she was his, for as long as the earth continued turning.

He remembered her whispering,_ "Thank you for being mine_," and closing his eyes in the most profound contentment.

But now he opened them. He raised her hands above her head and thrust hard into her body, feeling her shake, catching her trembles as if they were his own. He stared through her, witnessing every give and take, every push and pull of her spirit. He saw hunger and desperation and desire dripping inside of her eyes like green leaves falling in the middle of a summer wood. He saw her saying those same words, heard them in her mind, _'Thank you for being mine,'_ and he growled low and happily.

"_Eloise_…you're so—"

He tried to speak but it would not suit. She was far too comfortable, far too tight and smooth and frostily warm, even for being just who she was. She was too beautiful to be ignored in the moonlight, as his hand slid up her stomach, over her perfect breast and across her face. She was suffering in the best of ways, her legs weak around his waist and her body clenching tightly around his thick manhood, begging for as much as she could get, as much as she always got.

There was no pretense here, with Ella and Fred. There was no confusion or uncertainty or worry or guilt or regret. How could there be when they knew so very much of one another? They were as curious as ever, the both of them pure intellects, out to discover as many hidden truths as they could. And because they constantly wanted to encounter and unearth the universe, it was the most wonderful feeling, knowing that they could each find one another beneath a sheet or against a wall this way, and not need to search for answers. The answers would always be there, reminders and evidence of them as one.

"Frederick! _Ohhh_ please!"

His pace was fast, but could stand to be faster. His arms were strong, holding her, but could stand to be stronger, even more compassionate. His lips, suckling at her ear as he drove deeply inside and out of her, were sweet, but could always stand to be sweeter. He always wanted to be sweeter with her, no matter how tender a moment he could seem to produce. He was forever trying to reach a new level of intimacy with his Eloise.

She screamed for him and drowned out the sound of the shouting guests outside of the door. His fist was hitting the door, responding to the concierge requesting of their silence. Ella ripped her arms from his grip and her hands sunk into his hair, fingers tugging hard as he pounded into her, nearly pounding her directly through the door. He was sure he could have, and the thought alone made him move more quickly, tantalized by the risk at hand. He imagined them, tangled together in the midst of the most untouchable bliss, spread bare across the velvet floor of the third floor hall, disturbed faces surrounding them as they went on, uninterrupted.

Ella could hear what he was thinking and he in turn could hear her laughing, wild, on the crest of release and pulling more roughly at his hair and neck and arms to prove it. He did not slow inside of her, or neglect his studied ability to strike that one reactive corner. He did not stop kissing her wherever he wished, or thinking the thoughts that made his mind rush. He did not attempt to enhance the pleasure for each of them by ignoring how easily they brought each other to the blinded side of the end.

He howled her name. She writhed against him. He dug his fist into the broken stones of the wall. She scratched her way down his arms, harmlessly.

Then they fell, in one lifeless heap of torrential ecstasy, to the floor. Their bodies, twisted and shaking with laughter, were bathed in torn curtains and broken glass and splinters of wood. And neither one of them needed to speak a word. Words were for mortals in moments like these.


	48. Home

**Vellore, India – **_October 1968_**

* * *

**

"_My sweet Frederick…" _

She had spoken softly in the haze of night. She had rolled across the bed of a house they had rented in Sydney, Australia. Her cool cheek was pressed to his cold back, and she had wrapped her arm around him, hiding from the moonlight.

He had stared out of the open balcony and watched the swirling lights in the sky over the Opera House. Then he had taken her hand where it laid on his hip, and brought it to his mouth. He had pressed his lips to the center of her palm, brushed over the lines of her past life with the bristles of his mustache and kissed her deeply, saying a million things without saying them.

"I want to go to India," she had whispered, eyes closed into the muscles of his back. "I want to learn to belly dance." He had smiled into the palm of his darling ballerina's hand, and telepathically promised her India, any time she was wished to leave.

That had been five years ago, and as sweet as if it were yesterday.

Frederick relaxed now, back arched into the blue tiles of a reservoir bath. The lavender water lapped at his chest and knees, where they were bent, spread to the sides of the tub, hopeful of company to fit between. His arms were stretched, fingers dangling off the sides with water droplets rolling onto the floor. He was still as stone and smooth as soap, eyes closed to the sunset rays that bore heavily through the open, pillared arches of the bathroom. A silver talisman was suspended from his neck, glinting in the orange glow over the Indian hills and keeping him from utter destruction.

He hadn't entirely believed it when he had first been told there were ways to make this possible, this temporary existence of sunset basking and sunrise welcoming. There were rumors, of course there were; every new place they traveled to seemed to have them. There were others like them, everywhere, hiding out among the human race as if no threat belonged. They lived lives as simple and mediocre as anyone. They were businessmen and politicians and physicians and professors. They were nurses and models and poets and housewives. They were night dwellers and daylight contenders, all of them, any of them that desired.

"It will work," the small cocoa faced man at a market in Mumbai had assured him. "You will not burn with this. It is guard against the violence of the sun, for _you_."

He had shoved into his hand the talisman, a twisted symbol that observed Celtic beliefs of old. Fred's fingers had run across the soldered emblem of the summer solstice curiously, uncertain, and the man had looked up at him with wide eyes. He wanted payment. He wanted to know that he would be compensated for having helped another of what the native Hindi of this land called, _'Adhe ko mara ala,'_ the half killed, vampires.

"Thank you," Frederick had finally said, and paid double what the chain was worth.

The little man, Nipun, whose name appropriately meant _'expert'_, had that day become his source of all interests. Once the talisman had proved effective and harmless, he had sold Frederick a second one, smaller, with a sea green sapphire set into the middle. It was a perfect match for Ella's eyes.

This man had been a protector, proprietor, and a messenger of evil rumors circling his and Ella's stay in the village of Vellore. He had been a mortal friend of otherworldly knowledge, who had helped them appear more human, to hide and live and inhale the joys of India without ruin.

And there were many joys. So many in fact, that their small visit had somewhere along the way become an alternative home to England. India was magical, even in the most soiled of areas. Humanity was worshipped here in ways that neither Frederick nor Ella had yet seen. This provided them with a newfound respect for those they hunted, for the bite and theft of such energy. They cherished every drop as though it were individually gifted, and savored the life of every man or woman or animal that fell beneath their spellbinding gazes.

The Gods and Goddesses outnumbered the populous of some villages, and the earth was liven, rich, and once again being used with fertile care. The world's many wars surrounded the plains of this country, but there had been growing peace here since the middle 60's, a sanctuary in the worst of conditions and under the most difficult of lifestyles, even theirs.

They hadn't wanted to leave. Eloise had her dancing and the company of the many repressed, most rebellious women in the village. Frederick had found fascination in every depth of the culture, of business and politics, of studying the life, the love, the passion of those beneath the Indian sun. For this, they could see no immediate reason to return to their cottage in Dorset, or the apartment in London, not when they had forever to do so.

He heard a soft knock on the bath's door and opened his eyes. The sun had entirely disappeared over the mountainside and been replaced with the early embers of twilight, a blue shade of the sky that had grown to be his favorite. He smiled without restraint and turned his face towards the creaking door.

"You're back," he exclaimed when Ella poked her head in.

She grinned wickedly.

"Care for company?"

"Desperately," he sighed.

And the look in his eyes said everything to her. It said, _'come and spread yourself between my legs'_, and it said _'come and rest your head over my heart, the one that is still for only you.'_

Ella slipped one leg inside the room. It was draped in transparent violet silk that cut to her smooth hip bone. Jewels of the most delicate gold shimmered around every curve of her body, and made faint whispers of music as she danced seductively across the tiled room towards him. He shifted in the water, splashing a little over the edge of the tub, and reached both wet hands out of her, groaning with happiness.

Where she sat on the edge of the bath, he could press his hands to her bare stomach and run them over the silk at her waist and thighs and breasts. He could kiss the soft knots in her spine and lay her back in his strong arms, kissing every other inch of her flesh as she sank down into the water between his legs.

The purple drapery floated in the scented water and she laughed, leaning back against his chest, contented and full from having hunted on her way home from dancing. He could smell the energy, the satiated hunger of attack coming off her skin, and indulged himself in the scent. He breathed in every curl of her hair and every pore on her neck. Ella felt his hand sliding down her stomach, toying with jewels and then diving into her thighs and under a fine layer of silk. She could feel his talisman pressing between her shoulder blades and tilted her head back into his wet neck, comfortably.

"I think I'd like to go back to England," she whispered.

Frederick closed his eyes and rubbed deeply at the cold heat of her core, waiting to hear her whimper before he asked, "Back home?"

Her body writhed slightly beneath the water, her hands gripped the sides of the tub, her thighs tightened around his hand and she bit into her quivering lip. A finger slipped into the cavern of her sweetness, curling immediately to the spot that made her breasts harden under the wet silk and her open-mouth kisses brush at his jaw, with her fangs teasing him. He watched her eyes roll back into her head and re-emerge half a dozen times, like mossy stones leaping out of a pool of lust.

He drove her over the edge without thinking twice or needing to try. It was a beautifully orchestrated routine, witnessing her every fall from the heavens, not ever from Hell. He knew the inside of her the way he knew every pleasured expression outside, and knew just when to turn her mouth into his and kiss the lingering taste of a victim's blood straight off her lips. He knew when to make her lose herself and when to remind her of how much he had given up, and loved giving up, to spend eternity with her in his arms.

Breathlessly, she muttered, "I am home."

And he kissed her again, psychically questioning her.

"You," Ella said, eyes open and staring straight through him. "You're home to me."

He melted under the heat of her gaze. He didn't dare spoil the perfectness of her words or the smile that had washed over her face. He didn't dare breathe a word or think a single notion for her to hear. He simply rested back against the tub, cuddling her into the wave of bathwater as he went on reliving memories in his head, memories that Eloise could see like the reel of film, like the shutter of a projector that told of their life together so far.

India's full moon hugged them like a dear friend, sad to see them go, but happy to know that they would exist as one, always.


	49. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE:

* * *

**

**Galway, Ireland — **_February 9__th__, 2009

* * *

_

He had not slept. Nor had he pretended he knew how for the sake of his company.

John was suspended somewhere in a large bed, an old bed, tangled in sheets and the limbs of two young women he could not remember the names of. Even if he cared enough to try, he did not love these women. He did not wish to wake them and cook them a breakfast he could not eat, or run a bath he did not particularly need, or toast them with one last frolic that he did not want. He did not wish to do anything at all, except leave.

He wanted to go away, to hate himself just a little while longer. He wanted to hate himself for just a few more years, maybe a decade or two, one last century in passing. He wanted to hate the world and the people in it and the way it kept on turning and taking him along for the inevitably endless ride. And he knew of at least one place in town where he could do this and feel a little more powerful, a little more in control of his undying life.

With a few soft nudges of arms and legs and breasts and bodies, he managed to slip out from under his blanket harem from the night before. He crawled out of bed and dressed as quickly as he could, trying not to disturb either of them, the saucy red head or the buxom blonde. Two names still escaped him, the way he was escaping what other men in town would live a lifetime to achieve.

He pulled on his boots, his old brown leather jacket and ruffled his choppy black hair. He stepped over his guitar case, where it had fallen in the middle of the bedroom doorway after a long night of playing at O'Malley's and an even longer night of seducing women through the darkness of his flat. He lifted his keys off the table in the foyer, being sure not to let them jingle, and then meticulously unlocked, opened and re-locked the door.

He moved down the hall as the grey light of early morning poured through the torn shades and painted the scuffed walls of yesteryears. He rushed down three flights of steps to the street-side door, forced it open with his shoulder and turned out into the cold Irish mist. That's also when he remembered one name. _Kaila_. That was the red-head.

John shook his head with a dark, tired laugh. He hated that he recalled who she was. He hated that there was a pang of guilt when he remembered having sung quietly into her ear at the pub after his set and led her out onto the dance floor for a drunken spin or two. He hated this so much, the needing to escape and forget part.

Two blocks from where he was to where he was heading, sat a corner coffee shop, the Blue Star. This was the only approachable thinking place this early in the morning. He didn't know why. He was on the coast of Ireland, for God sake. Every inch of every green mile should have been approachable, even in this vaporizing rain, even in the midst of his self loathing. But it wasn't. Not now. That same corner window of that same corner shop, facing the sea but never reaching out to touch the black waves, is what he needed.

He pushed his way through the door of the quiet shop with a rattle of those same bells on the glass, and eased across the old floor gracefully. He placed an order for a double shot of whatever, paid for a newspaper as well, and settled into that same worn out black wood, of that same old chair, in that same old frosty window nook. He breathed in the steam rising off the surface of the coffee in the blue mug and sank into the chair back, unperturbed.

Then he let his mind wander for half a second, and he remembered a second name. _Caitlin. _That was the blonde with breasts that had hardly fit into his hands. He had liked that about her last night, but not now. He had wanted to lie in the valley of her soft bosom and suck languidly at the rosy nipples that had cut fiery holes through her dress most of the night. He remembered all of this and his head fell into his hands now, where her breasts had, and he fought the memories off.

Their names were practically alike, Kaila and Caitlin. How in the hell had he kept those straight through the night? Had he even succeeded? And why was he bothering with two women in one night, who, aside from shades of hair and bust sizes, were the exact same? What was the point anymore? Hadn't this all gone on long enough, doubled, tripled, and been experienced tenfold to that of other men, human men? Wasn't he ready to stop trying to replace her and get over her? Wasn't his un-beating heart interested at all in attempting to favor another for reasons other than sex and blood drinking?

John sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair and growled under his breath as he stirred sugar into his coffee.

Then he pressed his mouth to the rim and gulped at the hot liquid in a so very human-like way. He indulged in the scent and the power of the Brazilian beans on his body, on his mind and spirit. Even vampires could find something to appreciate in a steaming cup of Joe. It was true. He'd learned that somewhere deep in South America, at some other time, with some other ghostly company.

He drank. He inhaled. He relaxed. He forgot. And moments later, in the most contented corner of his mind, he heard her whisper from hundreds of miles away on the Dorset coastline, and he wandered back into the presence of sweet woe. Just like every other day.

'_Good morning, John.'_

He waited a moment. He stalled, to put on a happy face before answering her call.

* * *

**Dorset, South English Coast **

* * *

'_Good morning, John.'_

She whispered it on her way to the boat house. She whispered it in her mind, above her iPod's orchestra of Coldplay and the Rolling Stones. She whispered it across the cliffs of Hampshire County, out into the cold air that followed the Channel to the icy waters of the Celtic Sea, and then far north onto the green rocks and waves of Ireland's shores. She whispered it into a little corner coffee shop nestled on the banks of Galway Bay.

This was ritual. This had been ritual since the first day he had turned and left her behind on the floor of her ballet house, cradling Frederick's lifeless form. This had been the constant fuse of their bond. Today, Ella had beaten him to the greeting, beaten him to the start of their telepathic, universal, never-ending conversation.

She smiled, swinging her ballet flats by the ribbons. She kicked up mossy pebbles in the sand with her bare feet, completely unharmed by the frozen temperature in the misty morning. She danced and flew around in the dead grasses, her perfect curls tossed about in the wind as she shouted the lyrics to _Speed of Sound, _feeling every bit a true part of the song. She was so untouchable that she desired having the world touch her, really harm her for once. She pretended she was a ballerina, lost on a sea of lyrics, spinning, singing wildly and—

'_Plie!'_

The voice in her head stopped her, mid-pirouette in the sand. Ella laughed and answered back.

'_You're late.'_

'_I am. However will I be forgiven this time?'_

She shook her head and flew to the door of the boat house, pulling back on the handle with a snicker.

'_You could start with one of your poems. Written anything new?'_

'_Hmm…' _

His thoughtful hum was chased by the sound of a metal spoon stirring a cup of coffee, a whole ocean away. She sat down, entranced, and tied the ribbons of her flats around the smooth curve of her legs, waiting.

Finally he said, _'I think I may have one for you, love.'_

Eloise stood from the chair, stretched her perfect leg out across the sandy wood floor, arching her back with arms stretched high above her tilted head. Her curls cascaded loosely down her spine. It was one of those free days for dancing, one of those days where anything went, where anything could happen.

'_Tell me,' _she whispered at last, ready to begin twirling at the drop of his first prosaic word.

'_Ballerina, ballerina…' _and Ella went off into the open space of the old boat house, driven by the sound of his voice filling the corners of her mind. _'You must have seen her, dancing in the sand.' _He tapped the spoon on his coffee mug and drummed his fingers on a wooden table she couldn't see. _'And now she's in me, always with me...'_

He sighed playfully and she slowed her dancing with a most amused giggle.

'…_Tiny dancer in my hand.'_

'_Ha,' _she chided._ 'Come up with that all by yourself, did you?'_

John laughed darkly in return.

'_No. I can write much better than that sodding piano man.'_

'_Oh yes, I forgot. A guitar, a Guinness and an O-negative chaser is the root of all poetry.'_

He scoffed,_ 'Wit.'_

Ella stared into the long mirror, watching the reflection of her smile as it drew across her lips, her pearled fangs poking out into the gray sunlight. She touched the green sapphire at the center of the pendant that had fallen from the silk bodice of her leotard.

She heard John in Ireland and thought of Frederick at the top of the hill. Nothing ever let her forget how blessed she was, even though it had taken the cursed alternative to find utter peace. She would have the love of her immortal life forever, by her side, and she would have the distant love of a bonded protector, a faraway lyrical poet, always, whenever she needed or wanted or desired a reminder of it. Though these two pieces could not be brought together at once, nor held in the palm of her hand for simultaneous enjoyment, she had them, both.

Frederick _was_ hers. And John Wilmot was there_ for_ her.

'_Sing the rest of the song for me, John.'_

With one hand on the bar, and the other lifted above her head, Ella bent her right leg backwards at a sleek angle, her toe pointed at the invisible North Star. She was ready for him, but he did not answer.

'_John?' _

Silence.

* * *

**Galway, Ireland

* * *

**

'_John!'_

He heard her. Yes, of course he heard his dear Eloise. But hearing and listening were two very different things. One required only awareness. The other required undivided attention. Of which his, in ways that it never had been with his beloved Ella, was stolen away by the chance of a single glance to his right, through a coffee shop window.

It was a sight that didn't require a double-take. He saw it all so very clearly the first moment his eyes fell upon it, as if the clouds over the ancient bay had opened up and pushed away the rain, just to invite him in for a fair look. And fair, it most certainly was.

There was a twirling pink umbrella that caught the light of the shop window on every drop of rain falling. There was a figure standing halfway in hide behind it. Two thin legs were tapered with wool knit stockings and cut off in one direction by a blowing skirt of a million different colors and patterns. And in the other direction were a pair of green polka-dot rain boots.

There were just so many colors, and he could hardly focus on one. He had to watch them all in pure fascination. She was a painting, a jumbled but beautiful mess, even without a face. She was a Picasso original, standing there outside the shop window on the wet pavement, no name to be had and no way of telling who she was other than the light at the end of a long tunnel.

John cracked a wild smirk. He was mesmerized.

'_John, what's wrong? Aren't you listening to me?'_

Ella was waiting for him. But he couldn't find his way back to where he had been. He was too far gone, much,_ much _too far gone in this mirrored wonder.

The umbrella moved to the side. The boots began to turn on the heels alone. The adorable legs shifted with the breezy flow of the skirt. The clouds closed back over one another, as if they were locking this girl into the world, as if she were accepting having come down from the heavens and decided to stay a while and entertain him. And when he saw her face, impish and laughing and full of such vibrant color, he could not have been happier about her decision.

She wasn't laughing at or with him, but into a phone. Her soft cheeks weren't painted by narcissism or vanity like so many other women he'd known, but by pure life. Her dark hair, cut short at her shoulders and tossed about in the chop of the wind, wasn't threatening.

Then, there were her eyes, the focal point of the mural. They were stones, blue stars in the pink shadows of her dancing umbrella. They were staring straight through him, without her even noticing he was there. They were mysterious and mischievous. They were making him wish he could uncover all her truths and kiss away all of her secrets for safe keeping. They were making him want to move through the glass—simply because he could—take her into his arms, carry her away to the most beautiful patch of wet grass he could find and live there with her.

No need for a house. No need for shelter. He wanted to be this little darling's shelter. He wanted to protect her, not bite her. He wanted to give to her, not take. He wanted to lend her his every attention, even in a flash of greed, that loving interest which he had for so long set aside for Eloise. And he wanted to do that, simply because she turned her eyes into the glare of the wet window and turned her eyes upon his, so fatefully. She had him then. She could have whatever she wanted of him.

A smile crawled onto her blush cheeks. Her phone was falling from her ear, ignored, the way Ella was being so sadly ignored in his head. Her umbrella stopped moving and her legs seemed to stop trembling. She just went on smiling at him for what felt eternity, in ways only John would ever understand.

This was not a Kaila. This was not a Caitlin. This was not even an Eloise. This alarming creature, this Irish pixie was something along the lines of a—

"Darcy!"

The trance was broken. Another girl shouted from outside, and her blue eyes slowly faded back from the depths of his black ones. Her smile did not, though. It merely changed, the further back she slipped from his attention, and the closer she moved into the realm of her friend's company. It wasn't a charmed smile anymore. It was, more or less, an obvious human smile. It was a smile that humans took for granted, because they didn't know how little it meant in comparison to the one she'd granted him.

He knew.

_God_, he thought as he watched her turn away under her umbrella, her arm laced through her friend's._ I know Darcy._

_Darcy, darling dear…

* * *

_

To be continued with the sequel, **Heart of Stone**. Soon to be posted.

Thank you everyone for reading! -E


	50. THE HALF KILLED SOUNDTRACK

**THE HALF KILLED SOUNDTRACK:**

* * *

_In My Veins_ by: **Andrew Belle**

_Eyes on Fire_ by: **Blue Foundation**

_Breath_ by: **Breaking Benjamin**

_Black Heart_ by: **Calexico**

_The Vision_ by: **Canis Rex**

_Everything's Not Lost_ by: **Coldplay**

_December_ by: **Collective Soul**

_Am I Still the One?_ By: **Daniel Powter**

_I Will Possess Your Heart_ by: **Death Cab for Cutie**

_The Dirty Glass_ by: **The Dropkick Murphy's**

_Isabel_ by: **Frank Turner**

_Hide and Seek_ by: **Imogene Heap**

_Friends, Lovers or Nothing_ by: **John Mayer**

_Remember When It Rained_ by: **Josh Groban**

_So She Dances_ by: **Josh Groban**

_Broken_ by: **Lifehouse**

_Mr. Brightside_ by: **The Killers**

_Bones_ by: **The Killers**

_One of These Things First_ by: **Nick Drake**

_All Fall Down_ by: **One Republic**

_Bittersweet Symphony_ by: **The Verve**


End file.
